My Mother Is a Double Entendre
Her messages are
not always spiteful.
So much of the time
they bolster me, uplift me
in all their exaggeration.
If I were all that she says I am,
the rest of the world would be
shit out of luck.
But this is her:
speaking on my behalf
and over me, in turns.
Of course, speaking over somebody
is what some people call
prayer.
Like the word of God, living
and sharp,
she is my heartache.
My biggest fan,
who knows where I would be without her?
Because of
or in reaction to –
who can tell the difference?
What I know is this:
she has always been there,
speaking impossible things
into existence.
Jessica Covil is a PhD Candidate in English at Duke, where she is also pursuing graduate certificates in African & African American Studies and Gender, Sexuality, & Feminist Studies. Broadly, her poems explore family, sisterhood, trauma, hope, sex, and politics. Her work has recently appeared in SWWIM Every Day, What Rough Beast, Whale Road Review, Rise Up Review, and The Maynard.