Drowning in your sorrows
Does it not make your heart feel hollow?
That feeling of emptiness once you finish that bottle and now your thoughts are more awful.
Your words bite me but yeah your message has been received.
Your tongue becomes toxic and your venom is making me grieve
Grieving for the mother that went astray, I wished the old you could've had stayed.
That sweet soul that is now out of control; now your heart is made out of coal.
Your eyes burn through mine as you scream and cry,  while you wait for me to give you a reply.
I have nothing to say except
I wish I didn't have to see my mother this way.

Three years a mother
                       Look at you so tall!

Three years a juggler
                        Be careful don't fall!

A mother, a lover, a nurse, a friend
                        Go on now baby let's hear you count to ten!

A sometimes yes to the invite
                           Poor baby has the flu!

An often last minute cancelation
                           The sitter has something else to do!

I feel so tired, exhausted, and lonely
                           Wake up little baby let's get dressed for the day!

Not welcome in spaces where once I was praised
                            Come on goofy girl we've got a busy day!

But I can be a mother and love you just the same
                            Good job my baby you said your own name!

when all the birds have broken their wings
i will cradle your blood in my palms like holy water.
it’s warm,
warmer than god’s voice ever was.

time does not speak to me.
it only gnaws.
i lie beneath the floorboards, fingernails black with rot,
scraping remnants of lace and dried sweetness
from the soft decay of forgotten girlhood.
those torn seams, those salt-laced dreams—
what is purity but a ghost in the mildew?

O hearken!
the lilies are shrieking again.
their tongues curl like burnt scripture.
and i—
forever entranced by the acacia with the broken branches—
watch it weep sap like blood from an open wound,
as if to mourn something
only the trees remember.

i have swallowed the nightingales,
pressed their hollowed bodies
to the roof of my mouth
and vowed to keep them safe.
put your hands within me
and you will know the breaking of their wings—
each bone snapping in rhythm
with the pulse beneath my skin.

Our God sees everything
but he blinks often.
how could anyone have a mother?

your ribcage—once cathedral, now ruin—
shatters under the thousand-eyed weight
of dead saviors.
their halos clang as they fall.
your conscience flickers like static,
blotted out by the black geometry
of the insatiable void.

cassiopeia screams into her chains
but the stars do not loosen.
the universe unfurls
like a paper body
set alight.

O hearken!
kneel for the Great Reprieve!
when all the birds have broken their wings—
may we bleed beautifully.
oh mercy you, oh mercy me.

She said to look away
From the body that made me

Doubled over in a gown, she is fear
Pinching feeling in her stomach like its
Near
Grow, pierce, adhere.
Waiting, waiting for the fractured cries
To plunge through the skies like its
Alive—

Soon, it’s close, and cold, and her coffin
Breaths sound like rocking
Cradles in the light, the sound she hears
A lightyear away
An echo; a reminder
Of the pain, coming forth like a Grim reaper.
No preparation.
It comes like a curse. Loudly suffering, she goes into the
Height of it all, head heaving—
and heavy—
and hellish—

When it arrives like mountain dew
Wrinkled, a peeled grape
Cooing, bubbling
No zygote, nothing but Mary
Holding her child of Love;
Soft and sweet like sugar sheets.
Warped around a golden light
By then, she knew, she couldn’t go by the old name
It will have her tongue, her thumb, her thick time
Just like it had her tummy
Forevermore

somewhere in the black,
my hand is outreached,
searching in that darkness.
pulling out one by one,
an item from my secret drawer.
i’m not sure what i’m looking for,
but i know when i feel it—
its smooth edges or distinct texture—
i’ll know that i found it.
i found it once,
so i know i’ll recognize it,
but the truth is,
i’m not sure if it’s still there.
did i return it to its place?
should i turn on the light?
i’m afraid that seeing all its contents
might distract me from my goal.
you helped me find it once,
but now, i don’t have you.
i’m on my own, all alone,
to again find my missing peace.

Mama's don't believe

you, 'yeah yeah', they often say --


'but in the meantime!'

A quiet moment
I steal it and wrap the stillness around myself
Bury my head in it
Until the sharp, outraged cry of my babe
Indignant at being left alone in his crib
Pulls the covers off
leaves me cold, shivering
Then I’m up
Tripping along
to my day job as Mommy


© 2025 Joan Zaruba. All rights reserved.

The soldier can not always be fighting
There must have been a time before the fray
When the man’o war was a child running barefoot over land without mines
There must have been time for rest
Time for lunch
Time for bed
The fighting man must still dream at night, of *** and flying and the boogeyman as I do
He must have taken up his own arms
Dressed in his own clothes for the day
Let his own legs carry him eastwards
******* his own head on straight
The man inside the camouflage still combs his hair in the morning
Telephones his mother to ask about the recipe
Tries to lose the last of his gut before summer brings the beach back into popular culture
The soldier too shall die
Die victim and perpetrator and ghost of state sanctioned fury-for-a-cause
Fury-for-a-sons-life, mother dearest
Load him up! Send him off! We shall turn your boy into a man! We shall give him honour! We shall carry his body home from the field on the back of a friend!
The fighting man in his bloodlust
Turns out to be nothing more than any other son
Loaded into a gun
Shot across the field
Into the face of a history who will call him Soldier
Into the face of the mother who will call him Little One at the funeral
Who will wail and weep and tear the flag
The mother of war knows best the sting of the gun
The sting of the soldier in her arms