Mariah Boone’s most recent poem to appear here was Mama Ink. These two poems read together like facing pages of a family album.
Thirsty Elbows
By Mariah Boone
By Mariah Boone
Grandma went around the house snipping her elbows out of photographs
the way she snipped my dad out of them after the divorce
that empty square for him in the string of my baptism photos on the wall
Little snipped off shards of her everywhere, tiny slivers of elbow scattered across the floor
She said she couldn’t stand their scaly lizardness
Or maybe those words are mine
But she couldn’t stand them
Censoring them with an energy formidable
Now she’s long gone and I’m no longer young
Smoothing lotion into elbows that never stop
Being dry, dry, dry
No matter what I do.
Our genes will have their way. This poem was so clear to me that I could visualize Grandma having her way. 🙂
Fantastic. Thank you. Well done…