photo from pixabay (Cilvarium)
These 3 sonnets were previously published in the now defunct Mojave Heart.
A Feral Girl Belongs Between The Trees
You trespass, sodden footprints in your wake, into a kitchen for purloined cake, crumbs, a dollop, butter cream. Clean pewter plate while an entire household dreams. You succumb, to ritual, sneak upstairs, nimble toes, where they sleep unaware. Exchange soiled dress until your armoire’s bare, grosgrain ribbons, stowed in pockets, for your feral hair, still wet a little from the lake, your evening bath before your stomach ached for cake, clothes stuff — you’ll find, again, through the servant’s entrance at half past ten. This house was never quite enough even when it contained your family — a feral girl belongs between the trees. Nipple Pulls you to his chest, after all the rest to fall asleep the way that he desires. you suckling his right nipple like a breast. “Like you are starving, and it can make milk.” Its slight erection tight between your lips because you know it’s true. He does feed you, something more than the mimicked milk this tit, diminutive, cannot express. A coup to keep it in until he’s snoring but if you do it makes you, in fact, his child, a babydoll undressed then nursed. It’s what makes it okay that he hurts you — defiles then feeds. Both father, mother, he can be. He knows how much you need a family. Bleach You didn’t really lie, that Christmas fête she asks about the dye — a neighbor friend who wants to judge and preach. You do not get a golden girl with dye but bleach. So you pretend it was the sun. You’re not the only one. They crown the blonde heads quicker than the brown. Won’t know regret, like you: “I could have won,” a public smiling shame in evening gown. A parent wants what’s better for their child: the waving winner, princess, sashed, that thrives. A truth civilians will never reconcile. You bleach away the pain when she is five. It will not be the last time that you lied How many days she cried before she died? Bio: Kristin Garth is a womanchildish Pushcart, Rhysling nominated sonneteer and a Best of the Net 2020 finalist, the author of LOLLYGAGGER and 26 more books of poetry and prose. She is the dollhouse architect of Pink Plastic House a tiny journal.
Fevers of the Mind 