Barbara Thimm
Mother Tongue
As a first wife lingers
at the back of a wardrobe, in a man's
most intimate gesture
you are there
gagging my songs.
I have tried and tried
to scrub you off, but
no matter how hot the water how hard
the bristles
you stayed like a bruise, like a taste
biling up in my mouth.
A knife stuck
in my throat, there,
lurking in the back
of my mind: the inquisitor
in the dark
speaks your voice.
He pounds his fist in my head.
A killer of
unborn thoughts, standing, watching,
mocking my every step, my awkward attempts
to dance.
Your rival feels like
mermaids walking.
I have learned to love that pain.
at the back of a wardrobe, in a man's
most intimate gesture
you are there
gagging my songs.
I have tried and tried
to scrub you off, but
no matter how hot the water how hard
the bristles
you stayed like a bruise, like a taste
biling up in my mouth.
A knife stuck
in my throat, there,
lurking in the back
of my mind: the inquisitor
in the dark
speaks your voice.
He pounds his fist in my head.
A killer of
unborn thoughts, standing, watching,
mocking my every step, my awkward attempts
to dance.
Your rival feels like
mermaids walking.
I have learned to love that pain.
Barbara Thimm lives and works in New York City. Her poems, reviews and essays have been published in stridemagazine.co.uk and The Manhattan Review.
Page(s) 7
magazine list
- Features
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- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The