K. Iver
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because mothers are more deserving of poems than fathers even this one whom the therapist calls a sadist though the therapist is careful to say she’s not in my chair meaning one can’t be too careful when naming a thing but I’ve sat in her chair seven years and it took ten minutes rocking there to wish the therapist were my mother as I do most women as I do most animals who are more deserving of poems than this mother whom I can love only when imagining her scuffed mary janes her double braids undone after she’d jumped on Carolyn’s back after Carolyn had stolen her ballet costume which meant there’d be no recital for Jane who was not allowed to slam doors or scream when Jane’s father said no more dancing period her bedroom door had no lock so most nights she didn’t sleep didn’t even lie down her knees holding up a sheet tent which is the metaphor for the big question of this night and this night which is this is he mad enough at Jane to drink more than usual because if he drinks more than usual he’ll open Jane’s bedroom door and if he opens Jane’s bedroom door she might again feel the kind of dead you might not come back from and who wouldn’t love this version of anyone who wouldn’t soften while watching someone make her first list of everything the world won’t allow |
K. Iver is a nonbinary trans poet from Mississippi. Their poems have appeared in Boston Review, Gulf Coast, Puerto del Sol, Salt Hill, TriQuarterly, The Adroit Journal, and elsewhere. Their book Short Film Starring My Beloved’s Red Bronco won the 2022 Ballard Spahr Prize for Poetry and is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions. They have a Ph.D. in Poetry from Florida State University and are currently the 2021-2022 Ronald Wallace Fellow for Poetry at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing.