It was the year it was 104 degrees for 27 days. The skies were full of rain that never fell. One night there was a crumpled body on the floor. It was my mother’s. She came back to life, but I never forgave her. That year there were 81 days where I was only allowed to speak to the apple tree. Green, green, green. But sometimes sour. Here are 53 days where she is heavy-handed. But the back-hand is quick. Here are 66 days where I stood as still as I could. Like a rabbit in the eye of a hawk. And here is another. And another. Another. Here is the hundred days where my mother thought I was a ghost. Here are the 13 days she went away. This is the day she buried the St. Joseph statue upside down in the front yard, and I dug it back up in the darkness, dead clover crunching under my feet, the neighbor’s Doberman quieted with bologna. That is all my hair on the floor. It was the year no one ever spoke my name aloud.
--Donna Hunt
Donna Hunt is originally from Cleveland, which gave her a great love for large bodies of water and failing baseball teams, but she currently lives, writes, and teaches in Brooklyn. She is author of the chapbook The Coastline of Antarctica, and her poems have appeared in Tin House, Diagram, and South Dakota Review
--Donna Hunt
Donna Hunt is originally from Cleveland, which gave her a great love for large bodies of water and failing baseball teams, but she currently lives, writes, and teaches in Brooklyn. She is author of the chapbook The Coastline of Antarctica, and her poems have appeared in Tin House, Diagram, and South Dakota Review
