Sunday, April 21, 2019

Nina S. Padolf writes


Conversation Between a Professor and Student

Tongues tied to trauma stick to the roofs of mouths
like peanut butter sandwiches formed in
little girl cheeks, where we learned to stuff it in—
not speak.

Family drama dug into our bellies, where bricks formed walls
mortar glued lips—
when we slipped
disobeyed household rules.

Today we talk of our mothers and their successes in neatly pressed
suits, elegant shoes, while they jammed laws into our jaws.

Our conversation doesn’t divide—
instead family histories expose broken stories
of dysfunctional relationships between mothers and their daughters.

We spit out collections of pebbles into clear streams
to recover from accumulated pented locked words.
Severed lips. Sorta dramatic theatrical- 0
 Severed lips -- Macy Baisch

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