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Poems

Earwig.

By Nailah Mathews From Issue No. 7

We heard each wound deepen casketless,

without mourners

held our breath in our hands       while

the salt freckled the snow.

Tell me where our love went to hibernate          Tell me if you shot its cubs

We were young together I can still taste   the splinter of

glass I sucked from your thumb

And you can still see my father   after his evening prayers

on the porch choking the tongue out of my mother’s throat,

his shoulders narrowbroad in the low light

See the way she rises after   he steps over her body and

over the threshold

  You are the only witness.

About Nailah Mathews More From Issue No. 7