Andy Fenwick
New York, USA
Where is my mother now, her hair
thinned to spider legs by New Jersey air spiked with cyanide
and methane? She carries cattails torched with Bics, their blue flames repelling mosquitoes
and their bites, tiny pictures of malaria, like slides
of my relatives, drunk on our garage carpet
thick with spilled toy boxes, plastic bikes, and skin shaved off my knuckles during hunts for tennis balls or hidden joys. Thinking gets boring and I
can admit that. The sun tomorrow will bite
one more time into the overpass and sink
with my mother’s wishes.