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
Skyping with my Mother
- 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
When I first saw her on the computer screen
she seemed gentle in her nightgown, even sweet.
Her hair was neatly brushed,
pulled back with a cloth. She sat tall in her bed,
moved the computer close.
All day I had been preparing for this, all night
I hadn't slept, wondering who would first
hit ‘end call,’ how long I'd last before bursting
into tears, when she'd look inside me and ask,
Why aren't you here?
She had plastic tubes in her nose, vases filled
with carnations near her bed. You look beautiful,
she said. She looked beautiful—
this was not the woman I knew, not the woman
I had fought with all those years.
How are you feeling? I asked, watching her look
at herself in the small box, then look at me, filling up
her entire screen from across the ocean—
and for once, she didn't answer me, but insisted:
Tell me about England, Tell me about England.
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- Chapter
- Information
- My Dark Horses , pp. 34Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2017