MY SHADOW KEEPS HER
My only daughter is sleeping
in worn sheets.
My shadow keeps her
like a shelter.
In this cave, she grows
like algae.
Later, near the clearing,
by the lake,
I hang
thin sheets, draped
across the empty
space,
nearly translucent. Water
drips near.
At night, the moon sneaks in.
At dawn, fruit drops.
She palms it.
A few sycamore leaves slip
into the lake
I stare into.
I feel its breath,
stalagmites like
hands reaching
for that sickness
inside every human,
inside her.
_______________________________________________________________________
JOSHUA BURTON is a Houston native who received his B.A. from the University of Houston and is currently an MFA candidate for poetry at Syracuse University. He is a 2019 Tin House Winter Workshop Scholar. His work seeks to navigate the way historical, generational, and familial trauma crosses wires with mental and physical illness.
Note: “My Shadow Keeps Her” is from a collection of poems about the life of the author’s mother; this poem in particular is in the voice of his mother.
_______________________________________________________________________
Read more by Joshua Burton:
Poem in Figure 1