KRISTIN STONER
Poetry Mother
For Sheryl St.Germain
In the beginning her wildness terrified us.
Wild hair
Wild eyes
Black as river mud.
The small jungles under her arms
made boys in the back of the stale classroom
snicker.
This is not what we thought
woman should be.
Opening her crooked mouth
over words,
blood, bawdy, breath,
moving her long fingers
like wands over a cauldron,
reading out loud of bread and want,
the push of tooth through flesh.
Once, I saw her in the bathroom,
next to the sink,
scrubbing menstrual blood from her skirt
straight backed,
poetic.
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