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In the Clouds MAG
My mother smoked too much.
Her lungs were all curled up
flowering down like petals
left for me to gather
in woven baskets.
She said it was because
she wanted to be so high
she wouldn’t be touched
by all the bearded men,
who smelled like too many shots
of whiskey and dirty money.
They named her Ivy,
and said she wasn’t as beautiful as others
but was enough,
so she always cried,
even with tear ducts
bandaged in vines
and the falling bags of her eyes.
Their hazel shades like sun rays
seem to always rest
along her deep waterline
and as many times as I shook her
they never woke.
At night,
she still held me
in arms like broken branches,
and said “it’s time to dream”
but her shoulders fell through
and couldn’t carry us
in the clouds anymore.
I lost her somewhere
on the way back
leaving me here
to pick up the petals,
and each time
finding only weeds in my baskets.
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