{"id":5561,"date":"2018-10-07T18:51:10","date_gmt":"2018-10-07T18:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=5561"},"modified":"2018-10-08T22:44:59","modified_gmt":"2018-10-08T22:44:59","slug":"3-epistolary-poems-kika-dorsey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=5561","title":{"rendered":"3 EPISTOLARY POEMS – Kika Dorsey"},"content":{"rendered":"

MOTHER, MY ASHES<\/strong>
\n 
\nMy house burned and now your ashes are mingled
\nwith those of my home\u2014
\nbeds and scraps of poetry and walls.
\nThe April skies are a blue hum that turns to gray water
\nwhen the winds come, and the bindweed
\nalready strangles the clematis while I let it,
\nwhile I seek shelter.
\n 
\nMother,
\nif you were here I would lean against
\nyour strong, Austrian bones, touch
\nyour weathered face and remind you
\nthat every home is temporary, even that of body,
\nand you didn\u2019t have to fight your death so much,
\nthe ragged breathing and sweat in the nursing home,
\nwhich smelled like detergent and urine.
\n 
\nMother,
\nif you were here you would find me a home.
\nI am so alone.
\nBut I have friends and family, just not you.
\nIn the evenings the liquor soothes me,
\nand when the sun drops over the mountains,
\nshadows stretch into my belly and nestle
\nin my empty breasts that once fed my children,
\nas you did me.
\nI become the rain and though the ground is thirsty,
\nI want the sun to cut through the trees and allow
\nthe shade to do its dark work.
\n 
\nFather gave me a pill made of blood and rancor
\nand he told me if I swallow it, an apple tree
\nwould grow in my body.
\nHe gave me a glass of water and made me swallow it,
\nand you didn\u2019t protect me.
\nIt tasted like vinegar and metal.
\nIt grew in me and God pushed me out of the jungle
\ninto a city\u2019s alley where discarded needles
\npunctured my feet and the man with the green coat
\ngave me a torn blanket.
\nAt least now I\u2019m never cold.
\nI forgive you.
\n 
\nMother,
\nI remember how your ashes glinted warm on the Danube
\nand carried you to the Black Sea.
\n 
\nThe only sea I know is the Saragossa Sea,
\nwhich has no shore.
\n <\/p>\n

\n

ALICIA<\/strong>
\n <\/p>\n

Alicia, the highway hisses with rain
\nand April plants its green and buds.
\nYesterday a poppy bloomed in the corner
\nof our yard and I thought it looked lonely.
\nOrange petals, gray sky.
\n 
\nAlicia, I want to walk with you holding hands.
\nYou look like the desert to me\u2014
\nchiseled cheekbones and eyes of clear, deep night.
\nI usually hide in bed from the night,
\nbut yesterday I drove home late
\nand a small fox crossed the road.
\nI wondered what it was hunting.
\nIts eyes in the headlights reminded me of yours.
\n 
\nAlicia, I do not know you.
\n 
\nYou are big-boned and strong.
\nThe bears amble out of their dens.
\nI always wonder how such large bodies
\ncan live off of berries and plants.
\nMy body is shrinking.
\nI\u2019 m trying to fit into this crowded world,
\nfind a cubby I can call home.
\nBut like the bears I need to roam.
\n 
\nAlicia, I am lost.
\n 
\nOnce I climbed Green Mountain with my mother.
\nI was thinking of leaving home
\nand the blue-eyed man I\u2019d left behind
\nin the Midwest where the ice teased my feet
\nand the leaves of the oak trees were as big as my hands.
\nMy mother told me nothing to expect from the world,
\njust trudged with her breath and Austrian bones.
\n 
\nAlicia, I miss my mother.
\nYou remind me of her.
\nBoth of you talk about wars
\nand poisonous mushrooms and dry wells
\nin the desert or the Alps.
\nBoth of you know these countries and borders
\nbetter than I.
\nThe barbed wire of borders has torn my hands
\nand I do not know what country is mine.
\n 
\nLet\u2019s build a home near the river where the cottonwoods
\ndance in the wind, where in piercing sun
\nwe can always find shade.
\nI have tangled shadows in my body.
\nWhen I unravel them, I see your silhouette.
\n 
\nAlicia, let\u2019s take the night and move to the desert.
\nI promise we\u2019ll find water.
\nSometimes the rivers flood with snowmelt
\nand the thirsty soil drinks.
\nWe need to build a home far enough away
\nwhere the river can\u2019t catch us
\nbut we can still feed from its trout.
\nEveryone\u2019s a refugee
\nand the wars will not keep pace with us.
\n 
\nAicia, let\u2019s go home.
\n <\/p>\n

\n

SARAH, THE FLOWERS<\/strong>
\n 
\nSarah, the lilacs are about to bloom,
\ntheir flowers packed tight and ready to burst.
\nYou have been stitching up the dead,
\nyour thread as thin as the air here.
\nThe wealth of April\u2019s green belies
\nthe dark grave you dig for your daughter,
\nand its flowers tease us.
\nThey are wealthy with their blooms.
\n 
\nSarah, we have known too much poverty.
\n 
\nYesterday you showed me the eagle\u2019s nest
\non the cottonwood along the ditch.
\nI wondered what it was made of.
\nMy nest of cotton and wood is only a through station.
\nI will leave.
\nWill you follow?
\n 
\nMidnight came last night without me.
\nI was asleep when my children watched the moon.
\nI dreamed you and I were building a ladder
\nout of sticks and bones.
\nMaybe our nest needs to be high like the eagle\u2019s.
\n 
\nSarah, we spend too much time on the ground.
\n 
\nOnce I crafted airplanes out of paper
\nand climbed mountains as big as God\u2019s frown.
\nHe shrugged me off the heights
\nwhen my people died,
\nand now I prune gardens and save coins.
\n 
\nSarah, I am tired.
\n 
\nTomorrow is a basin I fill with water.
\nIt is holy water for you.
\nTouch it with your finger and cross yourself\u2014
\nheart, third eye, shoulders wide enough
\nto carry the world.
\n 
\nWater is a kind of home.
\nI\u2019m only at home when swimming in lakes
\nor soaking in hot springs.
\nBut the waves of the ocean are too big.
\nThey scare me.
\n 
\nSarah, I\u2019m a coward.
\n 
\nYou are brave, and you bury the dead with care.
\nI plant lilacs on your daughter\u2019s grave.
\nTomorrow will find us climbing.
\nThe roses will also bloom,
\nbut we must wait. <\/p>\n

 
\n 
\n\"\"Kika Dorsey is a poet, educator, writing coach and tutor in Boulder, Colorado. While finishing her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature in Seattle, Washington, she performed her poetry with musicians and artists and wrote about German and Italian modern and postmodern writers.<\/p>\n

Her poems have been published in The Denver Quarterly, KYSO Flash, The Comstock Review, Narrative Northeast, The Columbia Review,<\/em> among numerous other journals and books. Her chapbook, Beside Herself<\/em> , was published by Flutter Press in 2010. Her full-length collection, Rust<\/em>, came out with Word Tech Editions in 2016. Her book, Coming Up For Air<\/em>, was published in 2018. She is an adjunct instructor of English at Front Range Community College and has tutored in their writing center since 2008. She is also the poetry editor of Plains Paradox.<\/p>\n

When not writing, tutoring, or teaching, she taxis her teenagers to activities, swims miles in pools, and runs and hikes in the open space of Colorado\u2019s mountains and plains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MOTHER, MY ASHES   My house burned and now your ashes are mingled with those of my home\u2014 beds and scraps of poetry and walls. The April skies are a blue hum that turns to gray water when the winds come, and the bindweed already strangles the clematis while I let it, while I seek [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5566,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[302],"class_list":["post-5561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-burned-house-by-richard-wallace-wikicomons-public-domain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5561"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5581,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5561\/revisions\/5581"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}