They emerge from dark corners,
cool-handed, belly-soft. They stand
in floral nightgowns over our beds,
hold depressors to tongues, stroke tendrils of hair
from damp foreheads and cheeks,
then fold themselves into cupboards and drawers.
When we call them, they straddle our nightmares.
If a wolf comes to the door, they tell it to scram.
If a man wants to marry us, they cut off his
thumbs. While we have them,
we’re safe. Only girls without mothers
get eaten by wolves.
When they are lovely, we love them.
They make figures for us on the wall: bears and lions,
horses that kick, and a mouth that devours them all.
When they are tired, we tiptoe around them,
turn down the lights until they are pinpricks
smaller than stars.
The mothers are many, too many to name.
Their voices buzz in our ears, blister
our brains. We spider ourselves
into crevices where they can’t find us.
No bedtimes or baths, no eyes like hurt pearls
peering into our trap doors.
They make many wounds. They tell stories
we don’t want to hear. They reach down below us
to papery roots, turning them over in our thin dim beds.
Sleep is one gift they allow us. They coax dreams
from our milk-heavy heads. When they sing,
they are bells that sound just like bells.
When they are angry, they send us outside.
We pick berries deep in the woods, eat until
our fingers and dresses are stained, our bellies drum-tight.
We say to ourselves we won’t ever go back.
Our lips are the color of berries. The berries are crimson,
so crimson they’re purple, so purple they’re black.
—Rebecca Cross
Rebecca Cross has an MA in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of Sussex. Her poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Southern Humanities Review, Poetry Daily, Hotel Amerika, Quarterly West, Poet Lore, Beloit Poetry Journal, and Image, among other journals. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best New Poets.