Poetry from Meggie Royer

Like Mother, Like Daughter

Original images via morgueFile

Autumn, and your mother’s hands are starting to change again,
salmon in the backyard creek reversing course.
In this life the two of you are leaning
against your father’s ghost like wind.
And even the rain knows to stay away
from the house, whole drafts of it missing the porch,
your mouth filling with silver
the way the dying tremble
beneath the coins over their eyes.
On quiet afternoons you can hear her nails
beneath the door or from the pantry,
once entering the kitchen to find each one
palm up on the table, clasping the first knife they could find,
ready to ward off the only intruder
they ever knew.

Meggie Royer is a writer and photographer from the Midwest who is currently majoring in Psychology at Macalester College. Her poems have previously appeared in Words Dance Magazine, The Harpoon Review, Melancholy Hyperbole, and more. She has won national medals for her poetry and a writing portfolio in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and was the Macalester Honorable Mention recipient of the 2015 Academy of American Poets Student Poetry Prize.