Fishing

It’s hard to know where to dip in
after a day of circling the lake
of my mind. I don’t know which line
will fish. My mother’s memory loops

and breaks. She asks me
do I remember the baby she lost
before me. I say I don’t. I say nothing
that will remind her that time is a horse
she rides without rein. I say at night,

I imagine you next to me, patting my leg,
and singing a whisper song, the way mothers do.
She is quiet. And then she sings me a song.
I listen. I try to be gift and not heartbreak.

by Amy Ratto Parks


Amy Ratto Parks is the author of three collections of poetry and a verse novel, Radial Bloom (Folded Word Press, 2018), which earned a Kirkus Review star and was called “contemplative and original” and “brilliant, at once dense and ethereal.” She lives and works in Missoula, Montana.

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