(two excerpts from “Another Mother”)
the new neighbor asks how my aunt is feeling
I stop
how would she know my aunt, as we never see her
and it is my other mother who is sick
she questions, as if my mothers are two sisters
who live together
raise children
share a bed
not sisters Gertrude Stein says
my mother not mother but mother
***
as one mother is a nurse the other is a counselor
a kind of therapy down the middle
one for the mind the other for the body
I help them sharpen that double-edged axe
for gardens for protection
each job a work of resistance
against grindstones
~ Dennis Etzel
Dennis Etzel Jr. lives with Carrie and the boys in Topeka, Kansas. He has an MFA from The University of Kansas, and an MA and Graduate Certificate in Women and Gender Studies from Kansas State University. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, Indiana Review, BlazeVOX, Fact-Simile, 1913: a journal of poetic forms, 3:AM, DIAGRAM, and others. He teaches English at Washburn University, is the Managing Editor of Woodley Press, and volunteers at the YWCA’s Center for Safety and Empowerment.