Swimming by myself now
in a sea of genetics
Do you believe in inheritance, I ask
his left shoe
Tap once for yes

I wear my father’s bathrobe
his flannel brain
the soft fuzz of a reason
why
I wear his shoes
laced tight
against the current

Breeches on a line
Suspenders holding up history
A penchant for the tongues of others
slabbed between slices of carbohydrate cruelty
I lay my head on his pillow
a white bread tombstone

His flannel robe cuffed the tiny bones
where we could live
the small escapes
through a mother’s pierced ears

white rice and saffron
a woman dangling from the clouds

Inside the bosom of a rib-knit dress
was my mother
unzipped
There was no presence in there
only miles of track for silver children
to tug on
She went under a bus to find the pain
that belonged to a scream
Inside the bosom of that dress
was a woman riding the third rail
and electric children conducting her current

The house, full of unhappy adults
and children on their way to being unhappy
The house, a starved place
full of fatty sorrow

I didn’t know it was there
fortitude growing under the mattress
a pea of courage
iron blood charging a newly dug tunnel
or in spring
my marrow tapped for originality
on those few days when bones ran free
and April showered as May cowered
frightened of her own beauty
 

—Julie Esther Fisher

Poet’s Website, Bluesky

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