“Aunt Mariana’s Hair” by Rosa Nagle

You were born blind. You woke up in my arms
        Green as exotic fins,

in the moonlight.
        Aunt Mariana’s hair

That’s why your memories lapse.
        at death. Uncombed.

Emerald eyes.
        Her crown of sea glass.

So we clothed her in a dress
        Smooth and pale

with tiny green frogs.
        her tongue on her lip.

No, you don’t remember.
       You never will

She stabbed the deer twenty times.
        understand

Bloodied, she stabbed herself.
        how green her hair.

A sacrificial slaughter of some kind.
        As if she grew from a belly of kelp.


Truancy 6, September 2019

Rosa Nagle hails from Boston, MA. She is an experimental poet and playwright. She has had both poems and plays published in literary magazines.

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