Poetry: LAY ME ON THE TABLE + PUT FLOWERS IN MY MOUTH by Matt Mitchell
Through beauty, benevolence, and brazenness, Matt Mitchell’s “LAY ME ON THE TABLE + PUT FLOWER IN MY MOUTH,” reminds us that home is always around the corner even when we least expect it, even in the “crowning bulb of blood sunburnt golden crawling // from behind.”
LAY ME ON THE TABLE + PUT FLOWERS IN MY MOUTH
god put a yellow cardinal in florida today, its beak sharp
like a needle, & i saw my mother in its feathers. in my
stomach, god, too, put a garden of fists. pharmaceutical
callouses over the soft pockets of my empty hands, nerves
undone & split wide into purple helixes the length of the
ohio river. i scrape my ribs against a splinter knifing out
of an old door like a syringe poking at the marrow of
vertebrae through the fabric of my backpack & i say my
mother’s name. i’m reminded of home with every step,
every crowning bulb of blood sunburnt golden crawling
from behind my skin into a field of recklessness building
skylines of welts from every injection that won’t take.
Matt Mitchell
Matt Mitchell is a writer from Ohio. His work appears in, or is forthcoming to, publications like BARNHOUSE, Gordon Square Review, Homology Lit, Drunk Monkeys, and Alien Magazine, among others. He’d love to talk to you about basketball. Find him on Twitter @matt_mitchell48.
