by Cordelia Hanemann
outside in the weather looking in
looking back I make a story
out of the face of the child pressed
up against the glass / rain drops
falling outside like tears streaking
the cold pane of the window glass
outside / inside re-tellings
my family black and blue / mother-father
slicing the pie / throwing the pieces to the birds
green/yellow : blue/green/black/yellow
bruises yellow out / scars deepen to purple
the body once shaped with its own bones
now scooped out and hollow
its scars streaking across the worn flesh
skin-memories of disasters survived
sometimes the wrong face appears
in the frame / condenses on the plane
slides down into a puddle of rainwater
inside the house / inside the room
what can be seen: girl without a face
girl without a story
girl caught in a slice of dark space
I need a story to heal the memoryscar
the woman I am making
Cordelia Hanemann, writer and artist, currently co-hosts Summer Poets, a poetry critique group in Raleigh, NC. She has published in Atlanta Review, Southwestern Review, and California Review; in best-selling Poems for the Ukraine and her chapbook. Her poems have won awards and been nominated for Pushcarts. She is now working on a novel.
Emerge Literary Journal 