Thrush Poetry Journal
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Sally Rosen Kindred

Late Dream with Winter Coat     

Out of my coat came a womb―
my mattress, my charcoal moon.

(Mercy is the myth, sewn back into the belly with rocks  
after the dead are lifted out.)                                        

From this wolf-dark wool (smoke pockets,  
cloud collar), this prize I’d pulled 

from my mother’s 
own house, hardwood knots

unraveled. Blurred into the yard. Mud  
in the cradle, mud in the code―

and tile claws, glyphic, marked
the lining at my hips. Tell you someone stole              

my mattress, dragged it, slapping wet 
steps, down to a strange 

cellar floor. Unfinished. Painted it
gray. Turned it like a page.

Spread across its sheets and craters
a family of rocks, piled plastic hair and lips,

all my heart’s dead dolls. Now, back     
in my body, no place to lie down.

And the cold comes, (it’s winter, 
remember,) shakes the walls with the clock’s

hollow bell. Mercy is
the motor, spinning this story, 

dream-wheel of
wolf-pelt and curls: on the coat

made of mother’s words
and cigarette ghosts

the buttons groan. Still I wear
it. Hold its season   

against me. Skin of a clock-face,
shoulder and seam: even

empty, it keeps me warm.




Sally Rosen Kindred is the author of two books from Mayapple Press, Book of Asters (2014) and No Eden (2011), and a chapbook, Darling Hands, Darling Tongue (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2013). She has received fellowships from the Maryland State Arts Council and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. You can find her online at sallyrosenkindred.com.





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