what a man makes of his mother
clutching the dog in a misty doorway morning, porch light on
his father already gone to work
the bus stop chatter of pink umbrellas and a kid with a stick
multi-verses keeping beat on an everyday city block
my world is here
and then it’s not
it drives away in a gently used subaru
while we go on pretending these last supper
good-byes are about the food
gone the boxed lunch days
no note to leave
so i bury a slate of tourmaline
for protection
i remember everything
milk braids in the fold of his neck nursing
every little stitch of cross-hatched skin
on awkward knees and band-aids
the aisle of axe spray when he and his twin were twelve
warm cookies pulled from the oven burning fallen off morsels
of pizza cheese
if memory had a scent, it would be the rush
of yesterdays as his
tires pull away
Bio – Victoria Ruiz {she/her} is a Minneapolis based writer whose work has appeared in What Rough Beast/Indolent Books, NYWC online journal, Gnashing Teeth, Olney Magazine, Anti-Heroin Chic and forthcoming Camperdown NYC collective book of poetry. She is a lover of all things music and enjoys dancing in the kitchen with speakers on full-tilt while her dog, Mojo, watches in disdain.
