I was twelve & she was Catholic,
Bible perched on a stand by the wood stove
under shelves of antlers, cinnamon,
& whittled canoes. I, too, believed in God
but also in the lake where we caught bluegill
& bass. In her scaling knife with its own magic,
lifting each swamp-green gem. In the red sand
driveway where dragonflies buzzed
their elegies for trees felled by bark beetles.
She would tell me that Mary was divine,
& I’d imagine a girl not much older
than me, arms morphing into hawk wings,
the halo behind her head hazy
with bonfire smoke, & then my grandmother
by the sink, humming the Kyrie Eleison,
Lord, have mercy. I didn’t think Mary
knew how to boil sap into syrup or slice
tree trunks to build bunk beds. Mary couldn’t
have worn the scent of aspen or flannel
shirts & buckskin hats. Yet both women
were young when they first felt the pain
that meant opening their bodies for sons,
Mary a dove-mother dreaming, my grandmother
the pouch of gathered feathers.
–
Taylor Hamann Los holds an MFA from Lindenwood University, and her poetry has appeared in Chestnut Review, Tinderbox Poetry, and trampset, among others. She is the author of Between My Spine & the River (Ridge Books, 2025). You can find her on X @taylorhamannlos.