After “My Mother as Tom Cruise” by Luisa Muradyan
my mother unfreezing from a 100-year cryogenic sleep
fist bursting through the glass chamber running buck-naked
and soaking wet, snapping the necks of unnamed extras
my mother in a tight leather bodysuit and an eye patch
stroking a longhaired cat on her lap, placing a severed pinky finger
into a stamped envelope
my mother, laughing maniacally,
dropping a lit cigarette onto a trail of gasoline,
killing everyone, even herself
my mother, as alien,
skittering across the ceiling
of a pitch-black boiler room
my mother pulling the covers
over her head when the family friend knocks
and enters her bedroom
my mother, knowing peace was never an option—
playing possum and shooting the hero in the kidney as he
bends down to check on her limp body
my mother sweeping the leg of the protagonist,
wiping blood from her bottom lip with a steady hand
saying you hit like a bitch
my mother saving the photo albums
from the burning house, her mother holding the match,
the lighter fluid still on her brother’s hands
my mother saying I’ve been at the mercy
of men just following orders,
never again
my mother, starving at home;
leaving school before breakfast when
classmates recognized her wearing their donated clothes
my mother bathed in red light,
alone in a room
throwing a bottle against a cement wall
my mother, the patron saint of poverty, forging signatures,
throwing gold coins to the villagers of sherwood forest,
shouting in an english accent, villainy is but a matter of perspective!
my mother in an orange jumpsuit
shuffling down a corridor in handcuffs, fingering a nail file
she found in a cake, a hint of a smile playing on her lips
my mother, holding the machete—playing the part she was given
my mother, raped for the last time,
my mother being the one who knocks, my mother counting to three
Terri Linn Davis teaches college composition through monster theory, and reads poetry for Five South. She lives in Connecticut with her co-habby and their three children. You can find her on Twitter @TerriLinnDavis and at www.terrilinndavis.com