my auntie a star
by Ashley Warner
my auntie a star
auntie moahn was back. house, am i
been dead but talking forg ing my
bout she know what to do aunt? am i
with the cancer. small now the
in her return, though i mantle, the triangled
remember her a sequoia. dead?
did her dying
in the living room
turned hospital room. nature
the china cabinet was the
procedure room light. wouldnt do
the hip-high fiddle was the hope.
oncologist with the patience
of a mother. we had the hopes
of daylight savings. we hoped a hi t
her do-over wouldn’t scare light
grandma, asleep in the backroom.
her dreams denatured. they move
past her sleep. she scares us.
talking bout, where ruffin,
who been dead. a flag now, remember
triangled up on the mantle.
the house fog now. disintegrating. can
i am my alive-again aunt. i am
my grandmother, forgetting myself. talk
i am the house, the hunted, the hunt. back.
auntie moahn was back. house, am i
been dead but talking forg ing my
bout she know what to do aunt? am i
with the cancer. small now the
in her return, though i mantle, the triangled
remember her a sequoia. dead?
did her dying
in the living room
turned hospital room. nature
the china cabinet was the
procedure room light. wouldnt do
the hip-high fiddle was the hope.
oncologist with the patience
of a mother. we had the hopes
of daylight savings. we hoped a hi t
her do-over wouldn’t scare light
grandma, asleep in the backroom.
her dreams denatured. they move
past her sleep. she scares us.
talking bout, where ruffin,
who been dead. a flag now, remember
triangled up on the mantle.
the house fog now. disintegrating. can
i am my alive-again aunt. i am
my grandmother, forgetting myself. talk
i am the house, the hunted, the hunt. back.
Ashley Warner is a Black Woman poet living and writing in Houston, TX. She was born in New Orleans East and raised in Gwinnett County Georgia. Her poetry contends with Black American women surviving capitalism.