everywhere—stranger, chorus girl, burl in the hickory. I paint my eyes
in the morning black, and out of the magician’s hat, I am you.

Smithed at your coals—your fingerprints a marker’s mark all over
my lips. You are the God and the garden and the apple tree. You dragged

me up from the wanting seed. I am nothing if not your daughter. I am nothing
without your haunt—heavy, annulling the holy Father. Possessed, in you

I am kept. Mother, in you all my days wax, wane night-blessed.

Lauren Davis is a poet living on the Olympic Peninsula in a Victorian seaport community. She holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars, and her work can be found in publications such as Prairie Schooner, Spillway, and Lunch Ticket. She also teaches at The Writers’ Workshoppe in Port Townsend, WA, and works as an editor at The Tishman Review.