I can’t comb out the knots
of 1995 when winter
snow runoff from a spigot
in a campground
was what we had for washing
the backbend to drop
my head like a wilted rose
into my mother’s fingers
at the time I did not think
about what it took her
to hold my body up
only of the frost
stinging the bottoms of my feet
only of the slap
of cold water
to my scalp only
lower baby girl lower
until my knees popped
and my bare ass hit ground.
Sarah Jones is a Seattle poet and Poetry Northwest staff member. Her poems have appeared in Entropy magazine, The Normal School, New Ohio Review, The American Literary Review, and other. Dancing girl press & studio will publish Sarah’s first chapbook in the spring of 2018. www.sarahjonespoet.com
