Z. T. Corley

Upbringing

after Brittany Rogers

In an alternate version of the story,

I spend summers in Greenville, Mississippi,

chasing my sisters around our grandmother’s

backyard. We grow darker

under the Mississippi sun, like water

beneath the shadow of a great blue heron.

Granny gives us money and we walk together

to the corner store to buy Slim Jims,

Laffy Taffy, Cheeto Puffs, and Sprite.

I spend my days searching for water

with a dowsing rod. I catch

and raise tadpoles. I talk to the trees

surrounding my grandmother’s house.

Granny spends hours curling my hair

for church. Her hands are good and brown

and wrinkled. She lotions my face roughly.

She says, Ain’t no such thing as too dark, child.

I fall asleep with my head in her lap,

her hands rubbing my back as if stroking the fur

of a small, frightened animal.

My mother is a burning church

after jason b. crawford

my mother is igneous rock a rallying cry a rotting boat

The Madonna’s dark pupil blackberries in a wet dark bowl

my mother is a tar pit a dead tree the vultures in the backyard

a motherless child a field without horses sea foam

my mother is a cartographer tracing the borders

between the countries Loss and Desire

my mother is an anchor a chimera a lighthouse

my mother is an olm driftwood on the beach a broken compass

a ruined map a tattered Bible my mother is a burning church

Z. T. Corley is a Tennessee-based poet. She recently graduated from Austin Peay State University with a B.A. in English and plans to pursue an M.F.A. Her poetry explores themes of Blackness, memory, desire, loss, and childhood. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Roanoke Review, Red Mud Review, and Revolute. She was nominated for the Intro Journal Awards. She is currently working on a poetry collection.

Artwork: “Walk this Way” by Daniel Lurie

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