Mackenzie Kozak
[a woman who is part-mother tells me, if you had gotten pregnant]
a woman who is part-mother tells me, if you had gotten pregnant
at my age, your son would be getting his driver’s license. a sudden
speckle to the throat and i am short of breath. i am a nervous driver,
a turn too far over the shoulder, jerk to the wheel. i mime a bowing
and directing, theater of the wrists, eyes out the back of my head.
that night, i dream a baby chokes to death on a wooden table
after i feed him popcorn to stop the crying. a dream therapist tells me,
you don’t know how to self-soothe. i tell her, i don’t know how a soothing
happens, how a want to soothe arises. see, everything is a planet or
a pushpin, a tire catching black ice in its furrow, a friend of a friend
whose story vaults my lung-lock. if i had gotten pregnant at the age
a woman inflates to the sound of applause. if i had gotten an earful
from nature about my rotting vessel, still, i can’t invent a story where
i carry the doll from room to room, pausing, there, there, with the palm.
Mackenzie Kozak is a poet and therapist living in Asheville, North Carolina. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, DIAGRAM, Missouri Review, Sixth Finch, and elsewhere. Mackenzie serves as an associate editor at Orison Books, and she has been a finalist of the National Poetry Series. Find her online at mackenziekozak.com
Return to March 2024 Edition
a woman who is part-mother tells me, if you had gotten pregnant
at my age, your son would be getting his driver’s license. a sudden
speckle to the throat and i am short of breath. i am a nervous driver,
a turn too far over the shoulder, jerk to the wheel. i mime a bowing
and directing, theater of the wrists, eyes out the back of my head.
that night, i dream a baby chokes to death on a wooden table
after i feed him popcorn to stop the crying. a dream therapist tells me,
you don’t know how to self-soothe. i tell her, i don’t know how a soothing
happens, how a want to soothe arises. see, everything is a planet or
a pushpin, a tire catching black ice in its furrow, a friend of a friend
whose story vaults my lung-lock. if i had gotten pregnant at the age
a woman inflates to the sound of applause. if i had gotten an earful
from nature about my rotting vessel, still, i can’t invent a story where
i carry the doll from room to room, pausing, there, there, with the palm.
Mackenzie Kozak is a poet and therapist living in Asheville, North Carolina. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, DIAGRAM, Missouri Review, Sixth Finch, and elsewhere. Mackenzie serves as an associate editor at Orison Books, and she has been a finalist of the National Poetry Series. Find her online at mackenziekozak.com
Return to March 2024 Edition