nelle yvon / poem

On mobile, this poem is best viewed with the screen turned sideways.

Out of Town Job

On Girls Only weeks, my mother and I spread orange zest 

on buttered toast and drizzle raw honey on top. 

We cartwheel in the yard on clear afternoons as the record player 

pumps Neil Diamond out the kitchen window, hula hoop contests till dark.

We draw together, too. My contribution always rudimentary humanoids—

rectangles with stick limbs, softballs for hands. She calls me an artist. 

When he is away, she reads to me by lamplight, slow to leave the bedside. 

No doors slam. No knockdown drag-outs wake me in the night. 

Mornings, we rise early and water her bleeding-hearts. Fill the birdfeeder.

We name her gladiolus: Apricot, Burgundy, Blue Isle. 

She always prays when he is away on a job. 

Counts the days till his return.  

Once, she patched a fist-shaped hole in the wall so beautifully, 

it looked like nothing had ever happened. 

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Nelle Yvon (she/her) lives and writes in Georgia. Her work focuses on the doomsday cult of her youth in Southern California and the mechanisms of high control fundamentalism that work to control girls and women. Nelle is also the managing editor of Beyond Bars, a journal that amplifies the work of incarcerated artists.