card 738, by Anastasia Inspiderwiht
I hadn’t heard my full name for years,
until Carrie started calling again.
You were always looking for me
under your bed, she said,
her voice like a belly ache.
A cake left-out
that crumbles
where no one thinks to look.
A rotten latch,
from a hand-size hatch in the stairwell
she stretched out,
cracked, and snapped a little.
Chimed,
I’ve been here the entire time
like we’d been waiting at opposite benches
of the same park.
Her arm bulged around the birth tag
that never was;
she sat making a splash
in a pool of her own blood
and whipped her cord
against the wall
to the beat
of our mother’s heart.
Look! on she crammed the cotton shoe
that I lost at the hospital.
The wrong foot
still couldn’t move from the spot.
Not coming out today, she huffed
but why, Francessca,
won’t you sit hereÂ
and play with me for a while?
