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“you look just like/your mother," he says, “who looks like a fire/of suspicious origin.” from “A Violence,” Nicole Sealey My mother looked like a woman, a nicely made woman in her neat turquoise slacks and size 4 shoes, buttons never hanging by a thread, her face bearing evidence of everything she feared—up escalators, finding her way in a strange place, leaving the house. But she was a fire, an earthquake, an electric storm— battering the roof with hail, sending blue balls of light, unraveling skeins of static yarn rolling across the room. She sent the poltergeist trudging up the stairs, stopping outside my door like a persistent sleepwalker. Most of all, she was a voice, telling stories, singing, teaching me to get the language right, pin the world in place with words. Every workday, my father climbed the cellar stairs at evening, saying “Shut up Lydia. You too, bitch,” meaning me. All the power of her words couldn’t keep my father’s belt from lashing at my legs and back. She spoke less and less, mostly muttered to herself under her breath in two languages. I saw it all. I was the message in a bottle sent into the world to speak her truth. It was my job to plot escape. She filled me with the family lore. Her silence turned her to a force that could not be contained, especially in that small a space, the pressure mounting underground, voice trapped behind those perfect teeth, behind the fear of uttering the unacceptable, the dangerous— how my father’s family left us to our fate, wanting to hide the shame, the family madness, truth that everyone could see but didn’t want to hear or say. When a woman is stifled for so long, the voice will curdle in her chest and make of her a fire of suspicious origin, smelling of gasoline and melted plaster. Her face becomes a crime scene, evident to anyone who reads the signs, speaking all the outrage of those who outwardly accept their fate. Broken wires spark a conflagration. I must trace the fire to its origin. I am the arsonist. I am the match.
Robbi Nester is a retired college educator and author of 4 books of poetry, editor of 3 anthologies. She hosts two poetry series on Zoom--Verse Virtual's monthly reading and Words With You. Her website may be found on robbinester.net.
4/10 / Meet the Artist with visiting poet-in-residence Tyler Mills / The Library at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 6:00 pm EST / Free
4/10 / Poetry Reading with visiting poet-in-residence Tyler Mills + local writer Jennifer Litt / The Library at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 7:30 pm EST / Free
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Stunning work Robbi.
Omg, Robbi!