Poem for J

Boneless I was
like pressed duck and chicken fillets
all golden brown and warm
love -- did I say love?--
no

            this was mesmerism
to make me give away
my unborn children
and the deed to my mother's house
mother -- did I say mother?--
yes

            and if you ask
with that honey on your breath again
you can be God.

©2006 by Brenda Joyce Patterson

                                                                                                                                                                                               

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Brenda Joyce Patterson is a former co-editor of the international literary magazine, Onionhead. Her travel essay, The Kindness of Strangers, was published in Go Girl: The Black Woman's Guide to Travel and Adventure (Eighth Mountain Press, 1997). She has studied poetry under Peter Meinke, Lola Haskins and Nicholas Samaras.