My Mother's Brand Poem by DeAnna Esquilin

Iris….

I think before…
When I knew you in the womb
In the pulsed & fluid soil of your vessel
Where I was intended to flourish
In god’s safety
unashamed

Fear was your name

I think then…
At a molecular level
You transfused an uncertainty in me
Like the four before me
And the four after
Replicated in a virus of doubt
Great clouds of inked anxiety
Boring deformities of spirit & personality
Something I don't believe
I ever quite earned on my own

Something…
Unlovable
Alone

And now...my familiar stranger
I think understand the geometry of your turmoil

For hours you go rigid as straight lines are
Your eyes fixated
Jeweled opals of black glass
Glazed in oblivion
A sacajawean statue

I imagine you there
Staggering like a zombie
On an artic terrain
Frigid with jagged rocks
The wind is cruel & nothing grows
In the pitch of black

Alone

(I fear you) .
I fear for you.
Your fog is no longer protection
But it is that fog brands me in dreams

Because Iris…
In the terrible silence of your nightmares
I sense me in you
And I grieve deep tears for two strangers.

For I am forever with you…
In those deep caverns that lurk
with shadows of growling Tigers

Whose cruel suspense
Threaten to devour

Us both.