Nancy Scott McBride’s most recent poem to appear here was

To A Daughter Unknown
By Nancy Scott McBride

When did it begin, the estrangement?
Was it when you were born and I,
high-as-a-kite on drugs,
insisted that you were a boy?
Or was it later, just a kid playing with her doll, I
gave you things I’d have died for at your age?
Perhaps it was when you were a teenager,
and I turned into my mother and became
the witch you had to leave.
Whatever.
I don’t know what you look like anymore
but I still carry you inside, and guess what?
I talk to you all the time.
The kinder gentler me talks to
the grown woman you have become.
Listen, I’m speaking to you now.
I’m speaking to you in this poem.