My mother named me
after the doll
with real hair.
When she died
she said feed her
your meals ask her
for help. Every day I
put cabbage borsch
porridge or beer
there—the mouth
remained: row
of black, no
opening
larger than the
cavity stiches
made. The mouth turned
yellow from my
sacrifices—black
eyes dumb
as death.

Millie Tullis

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Millie Tullis is an MFA poetry candidate at George Mason University. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Mud Season Review, Pembroke Magazine, Juked, and Ninth Letter. She reads for Phoebe as assistant poetry editor. She can be reached on twitter @millie_tullis.

Artwork: Caryn Drexl
Website: https://www.caryndrexl.com/

31 Oct This entry was published on October 31, 2020 at 12:02 am and is filed under 44 (October 2020), Poetry. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.