Baptism in Lines and Punctuation
Madeline Medensky
everyone should know how to handwrite
my mother tells me / like handwriting graduates you
from infancy / like it’s the only necessary thing
and then we went to see / the churning waters
ask for Dee, she knows / how to do that.
Dee says the fence lines / run wild untamed
not to blame the cows for getting out.
one cow fell into a hole / ripped stomach, eye-gouged
and calfless, missing itself.
says she had to shoot it: / have you ever shot anything?
ever held a killing round?
things stay with you
she keeps a dreamcatcher over her bed / Dee’s
jelly-jam blurbs with soap / says it’s the best around /
she looks at my coat and / says what i don’t need i buy
strings pulling strings by and by.
high above / the coalesced morning
mother turns her face / to churning water and release /
steps effortlessly in the slow thrush / white-edged teeth
Dee scoops to pick her up / cancer riddling her breasts /
when we liked each other best / she asked: what more can i give (you)?
the green swelters, swats away / as mother’s knees sink
in the heavy-heading water / mouth clear and distinct in
ways it ought to be / mother please just heal.
dogs run at heels in circles / Dee kicks them, they /
shrivel / baptized in the water’s girthy cold /
mother raises bold and full of winter colours / her cheeks
taught red and smiling instead / braced by body’s complacent pledge.
is this life or its edge?
in the sideways thought / that even water has no magic
is this life or its edge?
as mother’s temple-body / creases , diseased — bony statuesque /
i dream of her lost breasts / they circle, enclose me
months after, mother writes a letter /
sends it away with rhododendrons whispering
handwriting falling, slipping / against the white paper-white
while days grieve and Dee’s magic is
undone.