OXIDANT | ENGINE : Issue 12
Ivana Mestrovic
My Mother's House
I lived with her ghost for three years
We shared one pair of shoes
She wore the left and I the right
We clumped around the corridors
leaning against one another
her shoulders shrunk
so I could feel the ever-present
nubs of wings that had been hiding
beneath the fat of life
Occasionally we shared a bite
something bitter and well-seasoned
though she tended now to rarities
and I to the mineral grit of day
Eventually we parted
my appendages swollen
badly bandaged and temporarily blind
I have regained sight in one eye
Taut across my bones, my new skin
gleams if caught in a certain light
Ivana Mestrovic has worked in arts management for sculptor Mark di Suvero for over thirty years and runs his Spacetime Studio. Ivana also sits on the boards of Socrates Sculpture Park, The Athena Foundation, and the little OPERA theatre of ny. She is working on her first collection of poems.