still life

By: Lora Kinkade

this week my mother took a class on

watercolor from a childhood friend

who taught a strategy of layering—

a feature of accrual

i heard through

the grapevine about her disorder

how she brought fruit for them

to render how the peaches bruised

visibly as they painted

freshly pulled

from their truckloads of ethylene gas

after we eat

you pick at the fish’s spine as if

you’ve never seen one whole—

never lifted

the flesh from the bone like that

i fed you each

a cheek—a secret

delicacy tho even i

am not brave enough

to tongue the eye

from its fleshy socket

each visit is perforated

with questions the dotted line

of any back holds a spine

at the appointment

a valkyrie asks

consent balances a

heel to the back on

the high beam

suctions cups to my totemed

shoulder blades until

the blood pools

my mother said her first mistake

was to lay the color down too thickly

how she’s put on weight since then

& did i know she was into women

i remember my first fish

how i mistook

its body for allegory

rigid in the tin foil

it’s not difficult—

preparing the meal

peeling the scales

from their waxed wrapping

slicing a lemon, ascribing

worth to the flayed thing

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Lora Kinkade is a rural poet in the Pacific Northwest and holds an MFA from Portland State, where she served as poetry editor for the Portland Review. Prior publications include Driftwood Press, Damaged Goods Press, Slippery Elm, Anti-Heroin Chic, and The Bombay Gin, among others.