Terese Svoboda
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Each dream bears a nut these days:
She is cruel. Was she always?
The nut opens: Inside is the suicide
who walks herself to death, and a friend,
drinking in the living room. Or is she
the mother? It’s time to forgive her
her hemlock, its sloppiness, its anger.
She’s happy.
I wait until childhood matures,
the sugar turning. I let the heart
burn from the awful I love you’s late
in the afternoon when she reveals
what her mother died of: complications.
How complicated can drink be?
The Irish inherit depression
and too many children. That’s me.
If we’re a tree long on DNA
and short on survival, you can see,
my friend who-is-just-a-little-tipsy,
where I drag the tree forward,
then try to walk, then walk.
It’s time to forgive her.