from Fracture Anthology
Heard
I.
when writing in my mother’s voice: two pulls earthing us
away from one another.
the horses attached to a single body, each limb
pulled away— seeing through to her
through
a muggy decanter. I can never truly capture her voice, yet,
in writing her here
my hope
is to let lyric light through her
like a myth through family. I cannot touch her voice—
the jar of salt in my hands.
II.
a man sings his story in voice of a woman, his mother.
am I silencing her voice, closing in
on myself, skeletal as I am from the start? I believe the light
that guides these words comes from care.
but there’s a difference between picking up broken glass
and knowing what to do with it.