My crooked pinky has two stories:
The time it broke,
I dove to catch a foul ball
in wet grass,
bent it backward
in three-leaf clover
just before the fence
The time of stitches is known
as my chest shoved back
from the family threshold,
mother screaming
not in this house,
door slamming on me punching
to sever tendons.
The enemies are known as
the devil in me
and mother wielding fists.
My great aunt Flossy said,
God heals if you believe.
Naked but bent fingers all scars.
I dip skillet cornbread in buttermilk,
each mother calls it
their mother’s recipe.
Take off
and put back on
my engagement ring,
spread my fingers
into crook-neck dandelions.
Wish.
To reap the roots,
name the mother who loose’d the soil,
who held the spade and said
this is for your own good.
You better call out,
have mercy with the lord’s name
for a reason, Goddamnit.
Jessie Scrimager Galloway is a queer poet with an MFA from Pacific University. A 2014 Lambda Literary Fellow, she’s the author of the chapbook Liminal: A Life of Cleavage published by Lost Horse Press. She directs and teaches poetry for Litquake’s Elder Writing Project and serves as the Development Director for Foglifter Press. In her spare time, she enjoys riveting conversations with her best editor: a wily, polydactyl, orange cat, named Snacks.
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