Natalie Eleanor Patterson

Today, My Mouth

Morning in the sawtooth yard, & I’m slipping
on grass wet with dog piss & last night’s beer, 

April azaleas blooming sickly, a bush full of stillborns
stinging anyone who looks. On the outskirts 

of the city, you’re the only bird that circles
& the only mother-thing for miles. Back inside, 

day breaks your bed open with a gasp
of nausea & I hold the dog in my lap like a baby, 

crying right into his fur, girl turned hysterical
bedroom ghost. How many times have I begged you 

not to punish me like this, the leaving, the coming
back, before dawn has a chance

to pity my few jagged ribs? Today, my mouth
is wet with doors, distances, old rain from the gutter, 

& I don’t know how I’m gonna get home this time.
Who gets to decide what’s brutal

& what’s not? How stupid can one girl be?
Everything you want to eat has an expiration date,

& the milk between my legs
is curdling. Baby, I’m here, I never left. 

The pillow where you lay your head is rotten
with the burning from your tongue. Morning holds 

a gun to my temple & I’m never going to wean myself off
this brutal light that breaks every window it meets. 

Morning sings an ode to relief / to return / to the bonesaw
after all. Your unsteady hands.

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Natalie Eleanor Patterson is a poet, editor and instructor from Atlanta, Georgia, with an MFA in poetry from Oregon State University. She is the author of the chapbook Plainhollow (dancing girl press, 2022) and the editor of Dream of the River (Jacar Press, 2021). Her work is featured in Sinister Wisdom, CALYX, South Florida Poetry Journal and elsewhere. She has received awards in poetry from Salem College as well as Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominations. She is Managing Editor of Jacar Press, an editor for One magazine and a reader for the Julie Suk Award. She is currently pursuing her PhD in poetry. Find her at poetnatalie.com.