Shimmer

1. What does a six year old know about fishing?

My daughter threads a bloodworm,

casts into Brigand Bay, cleanly slices

pinfish with a Buck knife,

feeds strawberry bubblegum to crabs.

Shit tightropes a wooden sea wall,

watches a school of mullet weave their way.

The sun paints orange and purple across

Pamlico Sound, a kerosene lantern lights

the dock. She dips her and into the fish pail,

tosses curved slips of silver

back to the sea and dreams of big fish.

2. She's too frail

and tough for

sixteen, a daisy chain

child resistant

to daylight and reason,

escapes her highs

and lows by razoring

railroad tracks

into her forearms.

She cries

because I will not

let her go and

I cannot hold

 her tight enough,

this stranger

I call daughter.

I have no answers,

no antidote,

watch her cigarette

glow in the night

from the porch window.

3. Pink hexagons, pail red and round blue pills

tuck the storm into a lullaby. Day and night

shift to their proper places, I return

the knives to the kitchen, razors

to the bathroom; her scars fade

faster than my worry. She models

her prom dress, shimmering dark red, slashed

hemline skirts her calves as she balances

on high heels, laughing, twirling

glitter girl, she dances

on a tightrope.

The poem my

By- Linda K. Sienkiewicz

My mother and inspiration wrote about me.

It won her second place in the Detroit Women Writers.