After Maria Giesbrecht
But if you must know:
I now choose truth over keeping quiet,
my hair a glorious, windswept mess like life.
I don’t cry out for your arms anymore while praying
for retribution (though I think it is best we remain strangers
in this lifetime). I’ve written poems about menacing eyes,
leather-lashed limbs, invisible cages, icy silences,
spear-tipped words, and every other knife
you used to wound me,
I keep out of my daughter’s reach.
This was first published in The Hooghly Review’s Issue 3 on April 20, 2024.
