* * *
Years ago we told her It’s okay to have some things that you don’t share
Slouching groggy down the stairs she startles when she sees me
Oh wait Mama you were an actual ghost next to the bed last night
like those what’re they called holograms all floaty but your same
robe same scrunchie but your hair was actual feathers then you
just started dissolving oh wait sorry is this weird for you to hear
and I shake my head amazed by what she trusts me with amazed
because I hadn’t mentioned the robin that burst from our branches
when the tree crew got too close she vanished with one blue egg
in her beak I’d never seen that I don’t expect to know everything
so I looked online but the chats said no they don’t do that it’s not
in their nature that couldn’t have happened that never happened
today she leaves again for the bedroom she’s started calling home
I know someday a chatroom-chainsaw voice may try to silence her
I think she knows that whatever she tells me I’ll say I believe you
sweetie I’ll always open my mouth for you
* * *
Jennifer Richter’s first collection Threshold was chosen by Natasha Trethewey as a winner in the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry; her second collection, No Acute Distress, was a Crab Orchard Series Editor’s Selection, and both books were named Oregon Book Award Finalists. Work from her third manuscript, The Really Big One, has been featured in ZYZZYVA, The Massachusetts Review, and The Los Angeles Review. Richter teaches in Oregon State University’s MFA program.
featured photo by Jennifer Richter
