Poem – Sylvia’s Son (By Layla Lenhardt)

Sylvia’s Son

I was wrapped in a towel like a bad dream,

wet feet on linoleum. I was too preoccupied to see

the cracked blood, to hear the silence until I was knee-

deep in your tomb.

Sometimes, I dreamt you were a baby being born,

waking to a pain that was not yours, a motherhood

I never had. It was always the same, the air was metallic

when I woke up. You were there, sleeping slack-jawed like a

skeleton on my makeshift mattress, for what I’d later learn

would be the last time.

I was blinded by rays so bright, bourbon eyes, laced fingers,

I didn’t know there was something insidious living in your ribcage,

quietly sifting through the cracks, waiting for spring so it could spring.

I  still wake up screaming,

“please crawl into my mouth, you can make a home in there!”

I saved your beard shavings in a porcelain egg,  I no longer call my

mother. The tin can on the other end of the string is silent and rusted. I put crystals

everywhere to try to see your fleeting reflection,

to know that I’m capable of remembering more

than the smoothness of your blood on my hands.