Journey to Seven by Katie Quarles

Grandmother made Dad
and a bullet-hole in her chest.
She kept a perfect record:

circumference of wrist: 3 inches
circumference of calf of leg: 4 1/8 inches

Every vaccination,
the order and location
of each cut tooth—
she was the perfect mother
until she was somebody

else. Activated,
made of the way
you could say waves
caress or re-bruise
the same sea stones,
became, over time,
a relative in terms
alone.

Her keep, in the end,
undefended
yet she kept for 7 years
that meticulous record:

When he had his first water bath
he became frightened
and threw up his milk.

He is good-natured around strangers,
but prefers the security of his mother.

I’m told she was
plump
evil
lonely
67 when it happened.

So late, her sudden haste.
I was always kept away.

# # #

Katie Quarles has a B.A. in Literature from U.C. Santa Cruz. She was the recipient of the 2008 Ina Coolbrith Memorial Prize. Her work has appeared in numerous journals including Apocryphal Text, Inter|rupture, Poetry Now, and the anthology Connoisseurs of Suffering. She works as a freelance copyeditor in Rocklin, California.

Photo: Charles Deluvio