Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Splitting and Fucking
- The Metronome
- Oblivion
- The Talking Tree
- The Humane Society
- He's
- Romancing Herself
- Après Le Deluge
- Little Serenade
- A Cactus
- Mother's Wrists
- Transporting the Piano
- The Chicken Lady
- Mother's Tomato Plants
- Green
- How to Fry a Chicken
- The Fat Lady's Arms
- Talking in Lamu
- The Sound of Scissors
- Migraine
- The Glass Elephants
- The Storm Horse
- The Ferret
- The Red Tricycle
- A Music Stand
- Flowers
- Horse Bones
- Skyping with my Mother
- A Box
- The Last Time I Saw Her
- Speaking with the Dead
- Mother's Persian Rugs
- Caprice for Violin
- Dream of a Burning Woman
- The Last Breakfast
- Childhood
- Historic Evening
- Ruts
- Vagabonds
- Phrases
- Nocturne
- Shopping for Overalls in Milwaukee
- Treemother
- Wild Horses
- My Mother's Will Emailed in pdf
- Victoria Park
- First Storm
- A Daughter
- Hawthornden Cemetery
- Kathmandu
- Zero Hour
- My Brother's Violin
- The Family Freezer
- A Friend Request
- Feeding the Horses
- Lake Park
- White Horse
- Dawn
- My Dark Horses
- Acknowledgments
Mother's Tomato Plants
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Splitting and Fucking
- The Metronome
- Oblivion
- The Talking Tree
- The Humane Society
- He's
- Romancing Herself
- Après Le Deluge
- Little Serenade
- A Cactus
- Mother's Wrists
- Transporting the Piano
- The Chicken Lady
- Mother's Tomato Plants
- Green
- How to Fry a Chicken
- The Fat Lady's Arms
- Talking in Lamu
- The Sound of Scissors
- Migraine
- The Glass Elephants
- The Storm Horse
- The Ferret
- The Red Tricycle
- A Music Stand
- Flowers
- Horse Bones
- Skyping with my Mother
- A Box
- The Last Time I Saw Her
- Speaking with the Dead
- Mother's Persian Rugs
- Caprice for Violin
- Dream of a Burning Woman
- The Last Breakfast
- Childhood
- Historic Evening
- Ruts
- Vagabonds
- Phrases
- Nocturne
- Shopping for Overalls in Milwaukee
- Treemother
- Wild Horses
- My Mother's Will Emailed in pdf
- Victoria Park
- First Storm
- A Daughter
- Hawthornden Cemetery
- Kathmandu
- Zero Hour
- My Brother's Violin
- The Family Freezer
- A Friend Request
- Feeding the Horses
- Lake Park
- White Horse
- Dawn
- My Dark Horses
- Acknowledgments
Summary
Save me, she'd say, from your father,
from his mismatched socks, from the strings
hanging from his concert trousers. Oh, for
God's sake, stop fighting with your brother,
he's a stubborn monster, just like his father,
the brat won't even clean up his own room.
Be the bigger person, she'd say, handing me
the mop and broom. And while you're at it,
won't you fix your sister? She cries all day,
she no longer sings. One day you'll understand
these things. She'd say: You are a selfish girl.
Then move to the baby tomato plants
she tended lovingly each morning, right at seven.
And turning on Mozart's Requiem in D,
Mother'd fill the big brass can to the brim,
then watered each fragile stem in the sunlight.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- My Dark Horses , pp. 18Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2017