by Leslie Ferguson
Freckle-faced mom squinted / hard outside after hiding away / vampire mom in the lightless / middle bedroom in the house that wasn’t ours. / Cigarette-needing, woozy-headed mom / sat on the metal / chair that was gonna leave tiny diamond / imprints on the backs of her legs. / Her auburn hair a tangle explosion, she tapped / the crusted zig-zaggy scab on her forehead / and giggled in that annoying way / that’s barely a whisper of / what’s real. She pointed / to the far corner of the yard / at the telephone pole / on the other side of the wall. Grampa’s soft-petaled / spiral-faced camellias a fuchsia explosion over there. / Such beautiful things.
And mom / in the night had become body-snatched zombie mom. Jack-in-the-Beanstalk mom / following-the-buzzes-in-the-high-hot-wires mom / voices-in-her-head mom. Her jump was a camellia-crushing death / call exploding downward. I didn’t think / she was strong enough to do that. Now / her laugh was a dying curl / of sound crushing upward and / maybe she was only joking. / She fingered the scab / peeled it from her forehead / like a piece of gone-skin sunburn.
Little / stars, moonlight of the middle of midnight / how could she act like a bird and let go / from all that height / and make us all fall down / and not be a Humpty-Dumpty mother / crown cracked open / those loudening voices / exploding out? My fake-laugh mother / heavy-headed wanting-to-laugh-and-die mother / exploding-our-family mother / unforgivable mother wingless / laughless / invincible.
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Leslie Ferguson is the author of the award-winning memoir When I Was Her Daughter. She earned her MA in English literature and MFA in creative writing from Chapman University, and her writing has been published in various literary magazines and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic Review, Tiny Spoon, Coffin Bell, and Shaking the Tree, Volume 5. When she isn’t writing or helping others find their voice, she can be found listening to alternative music, wishing for rain, or reminiscing about her days as an All-American basketball player.