White Stones
After Andrea Yates

A Texas mother of five, who methodically
drowned all of her children in the bathtub
of her Suburban home…

It began a whisper
emerging from shadow water.

It came down as refined
as a dandelion seed
in its billowing skirt
but it remembers
the ravenous blow
that got it here

Now, it's a thousand swans
whipping and tugging
at you in a hospital bed
where they've brought
tangerines,
yellow carnations,
to tame your pickled heart.

But it turns into a tornado
of white stones
you scream in to jars
and you lock yourself
like a seashell,
but you can't shut out
this red language telling you
death is a cow
giving birth
on the other side
of a barbed wire fence.

What strange, familiar music.

So it is meant to be, it is
meant to be this stringent
and this sacred to destroy
the cathedral
you had pushed like wet towels
from between your legs
and nothing,
not even the fierce punch
of a squeezed lemon
can stop it.

-Lisa Araujo Davis

Included in the zine, Hothouse, issue 1

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