Point of View
With regard to the heart
of my oldest sister, the one who
stood in for mother, after mother
died: a range of emotions. Her years
of trying to care for three younger siblings:
love receding, resentment overriding.
Our furnace was often empty of oil,
but the barn full of hay. The house
adopted an echo. One arm
of the couch kept falling
off. All she wanted was a horse
and to join the Peace Corps.
With the week’s last dollar
she bought cake instead of soap.
Her shoes did not fit me.
I never bothered to try them on.
Mary Brown's book, Call It Mist, won the Three Mile Harbor Press Book Prize, and her chapbook, Drought, won the Claudia Emerson Poetry Chapbook Award. Mary's poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including, Cave Wall, Valparaiso, Prairie Schooner, and Spillway. When not working on poetry, she devotes time to raising funds for a not-for-profit health care clinic in Santa Barbara, California.
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