Victoria Korth
BEDSIDE

When I say darkness,
I mean everything I don’t
understand, my mother’s breath
in mine before I was born.

In the dark, her breath pauses
and mine goes on, pacing
in its neutral candor.
Can it be mistaken for hers?

Shape, interval, depth,
even tone, green branch,
sun’s heat, balsam when
she ran, while I hid

beneath her heart. Now
my heart disowns her,
my breath tastes of
mint, gone wild.

Victoria Korth’s poems and reviews have appeared in Stone Canoe, Broad River Review, Ocean State Review, Tar River Poetry, LEON Literary Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Barrow Street, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the 2020 Montreal International Poetry Prize, 2021 Streetlight Poetry prizes, and others. The author of two chapbooks, Cord Color, Finishing Line Press 2015, and Tacking Stitch 2022, she holds an MFA from the Warren Wilson College Program for Writers and an MA in Creative Writing from SUNY Brockport. She lives in Western New York State where she is practicing psychiatrist, and devoted gardener.

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