Everything You've Been Told About [Motherly Love] is a Lie
- Everything You've Been Told About [Motherly Love] is a Lie
I am not ready for her hands against my lips.Her eyes tell me she knows I knowhow a man crumples after he comes. When she pullsmy tongue, it extends—a length of red ribbonconnected to a balloon. She reads the I'm sorry printeda hundred times on both sides, then lets it floatinto the ceiling fan. When she scoopsmy Adam's apple out, it grows legs. It dances.It nuzzles her toes but doesn't speak. She kicks itinto the dark wet grass. Each tooth rippedfrom my mouth becomes a bird—hatchlings that beat their wings but remainin her palm, that open their beaksbut do not sing. Even as her fist closes. [End Page 191]
A human rights advocate and the granddaughter of a captain in Israel's War for Independence, Joy Arbor joined the Compassionate Listening Project's citizen delegation to Israel and the West Bank in order to listen to people from a variety of perspectives. Poems about her experiences have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Lunch Ticket, and Scoundrel Time, among others. She is also the author of the chapbook, Where Are You From, Originally? (Finishing Line Press, 2016) and the winner of an Academy of American Poet's Prize. She lives with her husband and son in the Thumb of Michigan and blogs occasionally about genocide and racism at https://joyarbor.net/blog/.
