share


My Mother’s Hands

shed coral scales

& sunrise. In England, the inside

 

is ashen. She touches tangerine flowers,

when a woman

 

exiting her home in Camberwell cries,

go back to where you come from, as if

 

she carries still the scent

of dragon-fruit. I swallow

 

cherry stones. I flower

your abandoned garden

 

in my belly, to carry in me the whispers

of all your lost colours. I dream

 

in shades of lilac. Sometimes

my tummy hurts.


ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

grew up between Oxford and Mexico City, with stints spent in France and Italy, and began writing poetry while living in Boston, Massachusetts. Her poems have been published in British, American and Canadian journals, including Blackbox Manifold, Colorado Review, The Missouri Review and Willow Springs, and are recently anthologised in Un Nuevo Sol: British Latinx Writers (flipped eye, 2019). 



READ NEXT

fiction

May 2013

Cabbage Butterflies

Ryū Murakami

TR. Ralph McCarthy

fiction

May 2013

The guy looked disappointed when he saw me. My one sales point is that I’m young, but my eyelids...

poetry

November 2014

Lay and Other Poems

Pere Gimferrer

TR. Adrian Nathan West

poetry

November 2014

Ode to Venice Before the Sea of Theaters (from Arde el mar, 1966)   The false cups, the poison,...

poetry

September 2011

Nigel

Patrick Langley

poetry

September 2011

Jamie sat alone at the edge of the dance floor and wondered how long it would be until Nigel...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required