Momma, Refracted

Abstract

Momma, Refracted JC Andrews (bio) Keywords poetry, JC Andrews, machine, plastic, body, sweat, hospital, ghosts I’m so in love with you all of a sudden, you machine angel. Angel machine. Because I am still learning your new smells. Plastic, salt, animal, finally and still thinking plastic, salt, animal, finally. Because you are letting me stand you up in the shower and wash your hair like you are not my mother, like I am not your daughter. And this distance is good for me. When you are tired, I pull your arm over my strange new shoulders. String your weight into my side. We walk together the long walk back to where you will not sleep but ask questions that I’ll answer again and again with the chestspoken Yes of my body. My body. It sticks these days like a weird rainbow in the corner of your room. I remember now that you were making a grocery list. Everyone wants to see it. The last part. The part you didn’t finish. Minds will make math of this. Alien. Angel. Miracle. Machine. The baseball game will stay on and dreamloop forever. You will forget me. The lines in your neck. The names of things. And I will hold you like I am thick as my slow manners. But right now, you are sweating in your yellow gown with your mouth wide open. You were long gone yesterday, and I see it everywhere I put these wet paper towels from up above the hospital sink. On your wrists, your cheeks, and your chest that is, yes, still moving. From this far away, I can song you down like a child, except you are not a child, and I am all the time, [End Page 150] always your child. From this far away, we can bend each other bright and lonely. Our ghosts are stealing third. We are the slowest light. Weather slung haunted. [End Page 151] JC Andrews jc andrews is a poet from Springfield, AR, with an interest in poems that work as an un-ing, poems that hold questions as a form of caretaking. She is the author of the chap-book Sweetwork, and her writing can be found in The Red Wheelbarrow, New Ohio Review, and elsewhere. She was a semifinalist for the 2021 Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize, a finalist for the 2021 New Millenium Writing Award, a finalist for the 2023 NORward prize, and a top ten applicant of the Mountain Words Writer-in-Residence program. She currently serves as an associate editor of Indiana Review. Copyright © 2023 The Massachusetts Review, Inc