Ellen Webre

DEAR MATRYOSHKA


I wonder how you keep quiet, a linden wood house of ribs 
for the chatter of your own hollow daughters. Is motherhood 
truly an eternal bisection, an ancestral cracking 
of shells and yolk to be borne and beaten? 
I hold my tongue because they sleep often, transfigure themselves 
into cats that scent the curves of my ankles. 
It seems that I am the sum of these parts, layers of lurking 
watchers who yowl, who stretch, and climb into the arms 
of whoever will hold them against the crook of their heartbeat, 
who listens to the low rumble of their throats, 
the soft black music of animals within animals.

       

Ellen Webre is a Taiwanese-American poet, artist, and educator, currently acting as a marketing specialist for Moon Tide Press. She is a co-host of Two Idiots Peddling Poetry, and edits Freezeray Magazine. Her debut book, A Burning Lake of Paper Suns, was released in October 2021 with Moon Tide Press.

“Dear Matryoshka” was previously published in A Burning Lake of Paper Suns (Moon Tide Press, 2021).

   

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