Blood was
missing
from my mother’s
Budapest
stories lost
I trespassed
stole her narrative
from the dead.
*
Invisible gloves
pointed to the left
to the right
sculpting time
opening sutures–
my mother’s
plasma.
*
During deportations
mothers gave
their children
cyanide
inside an apple
reassuring
my mother said
you weren’t
born yet.
*
There’s a hole
in my breast
pocket
dear Liza
dear Liza
how shall
I mend it
the drip
drip
of the murdered?
*
You think
of your own
neck first
my mother said
what will happen
to my neck? don’t pull
or I’ll let go.
Margaret Rutherford graduated from Grinnell College and studied at Sarah Lawrence’s MFA program. Her most recent poetry appears in New Orleans Review, Salt Hill, Confrontation Magazine, The Awakenings Review, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and Santa Fe Literary Review. Ginosko Literary Review will publish her work in late May 2025.
