I.
A drowned infant returns
to me veiled in amniotic fluid:
she is winged / whiskered / buttered
with the grease of afterlife.
I hold the small daughter who
is only my daughter
for now. I let
her charge my palms,
make my body
smell of salt –
She speaks to me
in the language of channeling.
II.
My daughter’s mother
drowned her & now
she is my mother, too. I let
her nurse, whiskers
to me & from her strength
a wilderness
of disentombment. My nose
is an exit for those
who have lost their tongues,
for those whose bodies
soak in gems.
III.
Speech is a sneeze
of existence –
I drape ghostjuice
across me
like large
furs & I’ve never
felt more
beautiful. My daughter
has taught me wire
the frozen river
& shout is anyone alive
out there? She has given
me two glass eyes irised
in bloodstone
so I can see
when a body still
has its orbiting
moons.
Kailey Tedesco is the author of She Used to be on a Milk Carton (April Gloaming Publishing) and These Ghosts of Mine, Siamese (Dancing Girl Press). She is the editor-in-chief of Rag Queen Periodical and an associate editor for Luna Luna Magazine. Her manuscript Lizzie, Speak recently won White Stag Publishing's full-length poetry contest, and it will be published in early 2019. You can find her work featured or forthcoming in Prelude, New South, Sugar House Review, Phoebe Journal, Muse/A Journal, Bone Bouquet Journal, and more. For further information, please visit kaileytedesco.com or follow @kaileytedesco.