Response To How Soft My Mother’s Hands Are

by Josh Bettinger

Abruptly windows close all over your body
& the laundry must dry itself in the corners.
The wall is a frieze of pills. Your legs are bottles

fashioned from tin fillings, the kind that glint
illicitly on hot afternoons.
++++++++++++++++Correction — it was
not a campfire, it was a flashlight declaring
a pair of shoes in a tight closet.
+++++++++++++++++++Correction —
we are not insurmountable until the bees
give up & spell stipple on our front lawn.

I remember how bereft the shape was when
your body moved, how the song kept playing,
how inside you black constructed a coat for itself.

A graphic artist, film producer, poet and bartender, Josh Bettinger's work has appeared in many journals in the United States, England, and Canada including Thin Air, Oxford Poetry, Western Humanities Review, and Vallum. He holds an MFA from Columbia and lives in Seattle.