special issue 1
// p o e t r y
My Mother, Peeling Carrots
by Pat Daneman
She scrapes another, hones it
to a sharp point, adds it to the pile
on the counter, an arsenal.
Curls and patches in the sink,
heap of limp, wounded skin.
Her face is brown from afternoons
in the garden, her eyes wet.
My feet are bare, my hair a tangle
from a long walk home. Her hair
turns gold as light fills the window.
I do not know her recipe,
only that she puts water on to boil,
cuts onions, carrots, potatoes, cabbage
into pieces small enough to swallow,
cooks everything until it has lost
the taste of earth. Halfway through
the second bunch she feels my presence
behind her. She turns.
I imagine she is about to tell me
something I’ve needed to know
since before I could talk.
Instead, she chisels the spear
in her hand, a woman’s spear.
Her skin is stained. There is blood
on her finger. She does not need to say
you are like me. She does not need
to say come, stand beside me,
here is your knife.
about the author // Pat Daneman
| Pat Daneman’s–she/her–poetry is widely published, recently in Mid-American Review, Naugatuck River Review, Potomac Review, and Touchstone. Her full-length collection, After All, was first runner up for the 2019 Thorpe-Menn Award and a finalist for the Hefner Heitz Kansas Book Award. She is author of a chapbook, Where the World Begins and co-librettist of the oratorio, We, the Unknown, premiered by the Heartland Men’s Chorus. She is from NYC and has a creative writing degree from Binghamton University. She has lived in Kansas and Indiana, is currently a recovering Midwesterner in Exeter, NH. patdaneman.com |
Website: patdaneman.com
Instagram: @autofocus922
wildscape. literary journal 