This hand-me-down
Gothic reflection.
This Holy Mother
Scrolling her entitlements–
Even after death. Her embossments
Perpetually etched in my ebony frame.
For so long,
I have thought us the same.
But, she’s just a dark
Glint for me. A splinter
In the beholden eye. I know
She follows. She breathes
The same air, close by.
I know she’s bothered
I survived.
That I lived
To transcend her
Likeness. Her creeping
Resin. The spotty
Patina mottling
Time. My face
An erasure
Of her face.
Our commiseration
Greets each day:
We grimace
One to the other
Then move away.
Tammy Robacker , a Hedgebrook writer-in-residence, graduated with an MFA in poetry from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University, 2016. She won the Keystone Chapbook Prize for “R” and just launched her second book, Villain Songs through ELJ Editions this year.
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