I Come From A Place So Deep Inside America It Can't Be Seen by Kari Gunter-Seymour

I Come From A Place So Deep Inside America It Can't Be Seen

by Kari Gunter-Seymour

published in her 2020 book, A Place So Deep Inside America It Can't Be

Seen, Sheila-Na-Gig Editions

White oaks thrash, moonlight drifts the ceiling, as if I'm under water. Propane coils, warms my bones.

Gone are the magics and songs, all the things our grandmothers buried— piles of feathers and angel bones,

inscribed by all who came before. When I was twelve, my cousins called me ugly, enough to make it last.

Tonight a celebrity on Oprah imagines a future where features can be removed and replaced

on a whim. A moth presses wings

thin as paper against my window, more beautiful than I could ever be.

Ryegrass raise seedy heads beyond the bull thistle and preen. Everything alive aches for more.