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Alifair Skebe
The Incorruptible Mother, a Prayer
In chapel, I remember nothing of my childhood,
save my hands clasped behind my back.
I might faint before the virgin.
In my mind, I walk the hall. Mother’s paintings
line the walls, except the Vermeer print:
a likeness of placid youth.
He paints the girl’s brown hair pulled back.
Her eyes look down. She sits in a dark room.
I know her from the fear of my early years.
When she hung in the living room, each day
I ran past with fervor, delighted in the tingle
up my toes, a panting and an ache in the chest.
I tried to look beyond her frame, covering an eye,
peeping to see if she would still be there
or my desire to look past the inheritance.
In my adult home, I want to stare her down.
I feel her eyes fall heavy on my shoulder.
Had I noticed how slightly the lute rests on her knee?
These flaccid veins—one drapes over
the bridge of her knuckle. The paper skin,
a gray-wash of soot and years.
A welling in the stomach, You know! I am
my mother’s, and the paint she left layers me
un-breathing, paints red fire in my hair.
Girl! Lift your green skirt from the canvas;
elude my glance. Look up. Play.
My severance: a flesh-round face
dun by candle smoke and ash.
A charcoal to your sacrament.
A whisper to your youth.
Mandala
She paints blood down the flower
between her legs. Thunder cracks.
She drops the brush, looks to the window.
A sound like broken glass—remember?
You were there by the back window
peering through the wetted pane
at her spread on canvas, a half-empty
charcoal sketch of legs, feet, torso, breast.
A ten-petal lotus opens at a crossroads.
The four-cornered labia fingerprints
down the page. A glass of wine close
to her palette. Her heart beats quickly.
Window again. Elephants stamped in red ink
cover the quadrants. Red strips of paper
collage the edges. You broke the glass,
then turned the knob. Lightning storm birth.
"Olga and Otto"
Jennifer Balkan
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