by JC Alfier
Eastern State
ʆ
I want to leave but don’t know where to go
When the shovel came down on momma’s head
dad brought me here to stay how long unknown
Up the ramp up the ramp through wooden door
A shovel came down
One Dogwood dressed in white among barren barren trees
They all look like shovels
Trunks branches shovels
Woman behind the counter has momma’s eyes
She writes my name in a thick book
barefoot still in my peach nightgown
Baby snakes peek their shiny black heads
through cracks in the floor
Dad puts my bag down and leaves
I’m brought back by a kind lady in white in white
In a room with no door
In a building with no name
the walls cry
I don’t know who I am
I eat baby snakes
ʆ
Everything is either an act
or call for love
The shovel came down in a call for love
Dad brought me here
as an act of love
I don’t know what love is
Nurse tells me it’s in the pills
Doctor tells me it’s in the surgery
My bloody sheets leave the shape of a heart
Echoing voices tell me within frayed wallpaper
Scratches at the cracked windows
Baby snakes in the floor
Whispers
ʆ
Dormitory,pool,landscape,viriginia,steelbedframe,snakeskin,stainedcottonmattress,charts,shovels,eatwallpaper,metalbetweenlegs,lunchtray,whisperecho,scream,bludgeon
ʆ
The gate to the bighouse was left open again. The grass has grown too tall, so I must crawl on my belly. The wooden rocking bench is splintering and I sit. I wish momma were here.
I don’t see the nurses anymore, which means I don’t have to take my medicine. Or baths. Nighttime is loudest of all. No one screams or moans but the crickets do, and the baby snakes slither in my ears.
Carcass of a cat, I pet the baby, gray fur, rough, missing patches. I’m not hungry anymore. Sometimes I miss swimming in the pool but I don’t see anyone to go with me.
Why is it so dark all the time?
Jennifer Rodrigues currently lives on the sacred Powhatan land of Fairfax, VA. She is trained as a certified yoga therapist & trauma informed yoga teacher, is a queer military spouse, mom, & newly identified ND. She has been featured in many lovely literary journals and anthologies, and has been nominated for Best of the Net in photography. Find her on Insta @gmoneyfunklove.
JC Alfier’s (they/them) most recent book of poetry, The Shadow Field, was published by Louisiana Literature Press (2020). Journal credits include The Emerson Review, Faultline, New York Quarterly, Notre Dame Review, Penn Review, Southern Poetry Review, and Vassar Review. They are also a collage and double-exposure artist.