Mother and Daughter
Carol Novack

My mother dwells in a coffin of white mums. She potted her own grave when I appeared, unexpected, an opaque black-eyed Susan with the simple expectations of a Venus fly trap. So mother said to the ladies in her living room: "I renounced motherhood as soon as she uttered her first cry. It was the curse, of course, not my fault."
Now there's Lilah, long and pale with Miro sky eyes, wanting cream from my empty jugs. Greedy for light and blood she grows fiercely, pulls at my nipples till they fall like berries from a hollow tree.

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