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FOUR WAY REVIEW

Jenna Murray is a writer from Upstate New York. She is currently pursuing her MFA in poetry at Hunter College, where she was honored with the Academy of American Poets Prize and the Collie Hoffman Prize. Jenna has also worked with The Sealey Challenge and BOA Editions and currently serves as an adjunct professor of creative writing.

I AM AFRAID TO LOVE YOU LIKE MY MOTHER by Jenna Murray

Sunday, 12 November 2023 by Jenna Murray
https://fourwayreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Murray-Jenna-i-am-afraid-to-love-you-like-my-mother.m4a


Somewhere in Northern Ohio, on a farm
my mother is drunk, kissing an open
cut, placing my hands to my sides. 

She is covered in moths. She keeps saying

I am your mother                I am your mother

               The moon is blood;

Wears her clothing inside out. 
Points to the invisible bison— says 
they come for me; my heart
is facing their curled horn.

She screams to the yearling: 

I hate her                    I hate her

                 I hate her!

                                     My mother hates me.

                 The first girl I kissed, the boy 
                 I bought an apartment for, the last
                 girl I kissed, my roommates, my cat, 
                 the grocery store clerk, the botanical
                 gardens, the bee colonies and their honey 
                 all hate me.

I hush her. 

My mother is tired,

                 My mother is my mother.

I am a good daughter. I take 

care of love for the both of us. 

                                  ***

In between the laundry line she flashes
smiles as the tablecloths roll with flame. 
The air, thick, like leather.
Mother is on fire, again.

You must understand, 
I cannot find peace. 

I try to stop her, but I am no good.
I open her mouth with paper gloves
and out comes the red heat.
Listen.
Listen to my heart beat.

The moon is blood. I wake up 
in Northern Ohio with 
a mother who is a mother who is my mother 
who digs a hole in the earth for a dead bird
she finds on the side of the road.

I say, mother, 
the bird does not need a grave.

Everything needs a grave she says. 

Even me. Even you.

 

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  • Published in ISSUE 28
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