MOTHER ASKS WHETHER I HAVE EVER CONSIDERED KILLING MYSELF
Eugenia Leigh
The question, gentle,
startlingly unhesitant,
needles into the child
I keep cuffed to a cell
inside me.
I decide
not to lie. Then she
decides, also, not to lie.
She makes me promise,
I make her promise
and another sun
sinks into its Pacific bed
and another sun
elsewhere kicks awake
the flocks hymning
for the God who flickers
on my secular lips.
Eugenia Leigh is the author of Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows (Four Way Books, 2014). Her poetry has appeared in numerous publications including The Collagist, Indiana Review, and the Best New Poets anthology, and she has received fellowships and awards from Poets & Writers Magazine, Kundiman, Rattle, and the Asian American Literary Review. Eugenia serves as the Poetry Editor of Kartika Review.