AFTER THE THIRD SNOW DAY IN A ROW, I’M READY TO THROW THE TOWEL by Julia Kolchinsky

by Julia Kolchinsky / Friday, 15 November 2024 / Published in Issue 31

into the fire      out the window
at the cardinal clinging          to the broken
branch limp            like a dislocated finger
at my feet         slippered & sore        from keeping
up        at my children yes       their screaming
at my children their faces        needing
always needing                        more
pink paper & play                    more water      more
food different            from whatever I’ve made more
more mama closer than sound lets on mama
from every room            echoes the house & where
is she               where? this me             named need
hiding under a sodden towel    ice thick
soaks frost & bitten toes          thick the body
they made of me          the towel too wide to noose
the towel too heavy to throw           fire
just embers now          barely a flash of red
through ash too weak to thaw         barely the cardinal
picks at my mended bones       beak tender
relentless            my children
run feathered & flamed               tongues stretched
for falling shards          the sky lets herself throw
relentless             the towel
isn’t big enough to cover all of us
mama more more                       mama
my children’s need       relentless
& when in flight              the attendants warn
put on your oxygen mask first before
assisting others how to let the body
listen                when my children
inhale deep                              relentless
my children      the only sky I know

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About Julia Kolchinsky

Julia Kolchinsky (formerly Dasbach) is the author of three published poetry collections: The Many Names for Mother, Don't Touch the Bones, and 40 WEEKS (YesYes Books, 2023). She has two forthcoming books, PARALLAX (The University of Arkansas Press, 2025), finalist of the Miller Williams Prize, selected by Patricia Smith, and When the World Stopped Touching (YesYes Books, 2027), a collaborative collection with Luisa Muradyan. Her recent awards include Hunger Mountain's Ruth Stone Poetry Prize and Michigan Quarterly Review's Prize in Nonfiction. Her writing has appeared in POETRY, Ploughshares, and American Poetry Review. She is at work on a collection of linked lyric essays about parenting her neurodiverse child and the end of her marriage under the shadow of the war in Ukraine, Julia's birthplace. She is Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Denison University.