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