Daughters in Wonderland

Abstract

Daughters in Wonderland Tasha Cotter (bio) I used to pick the trash up out of the ditchon Patterson road in Smiths Grove. It was thereI saw him spit out his window, bent canat my feet. As soon as I cleaned up one thingthere was a new paper bag, a new bottle.People couldn't wait to throw something awayon the red clay dirt of our name and pasture.My father said fences perfected land.He said they should look like they've always been there.Maybe God always wanted these divisions.My father hungered for borders just like Ihungered for a word for my secret earth:a land of caves and sinkholes, my heart the mostextensive cave system on earth. I knowmy father's right about fences and borders.Imagine the settlers faces as they crossedover the natural bridge into Kentucky:they must have whispered it was wonderland.Who could blame them for not sharing what they'd found.Have you seen this? Have you ever seen this?And then, retreating into what they'd foundit was asked among them, how to keep others out? [End Page 120] Tasha Cotter Tasha Cotter is the author of the poetry collections Some Churches, That Bird Your Heart, and Girl in the Cave. Winner of the 2015 Delphi Poetry Series, her work has appeared in journals such as Contrary Magazine, NANO fiction, and Booth. A contributor to Women in Clothes, The Poets on Growth Anthology, and the 2017 Poet's Market, she makes her home in Lexington, Kentucky. Copyright © 2017 Berea College