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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “Spartacus” Down in the Dirt, v178 (the December 2020 Issue) Order the paperback book:

Order this writing that appears in the one-of-a-kind anthology Late Frost the Down in the Dirt Sept.-Dec. 2020 issues collection book		get the 420 page Sept.-Dec. 2020 Down in the Dirt 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Monsoon in my Throat

Despy Boutris

Still the scent of sleep, I walk
          through the woods, swallowing wind

in mouthfuls. A mile away, my mother fries an egg,
knifes the yolk to watch it pool

on her plate. She spends days pulling weeds
from the garden, prickly daughters

she can throw away. Unlike me—
          my mistakes lengthen like gossamer,

and I search for an oak in which to build
          a better home. I think the newspaper’s

obituary section should include the trees.
And the sound of breeze through leaves

is no aria. More mourning song.
We die in so many ways daily:

sunburned skin flaking like a pastry, nostrils
dripping blood. My mother

walks down to the store for milk,
and I recover all the names I’ve been given:

Milkskin, Beanpole, Blue Eyes, One for Whom I Feel
Hunger. I wish life floated on

with flawless grammar, no desire to rewrite
what could have been, no way to know

the dried-up river’s no fiction.
When my grandmother died, my mother

didn’t cry, and neither did I. We feel homesick
for nowhere, eyes searching latte spume

for fortunes, laughter devolving into dust
in our throats. Sometimes life is a minor key.

Sometimes it’s an ocean of flames.

 

(first published in Raleigh Review)

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