My Mother Was a Whirler

Eric Afflerbach, “Mother”

by Guinevere H.S.

Late afternoon. Snow. Sky 

opens like a semagram. 

Across the palm of 

blue asphalt, 

petrol slurs, in spectral lines 

etched / Life / Love / Fate 

glint, along 

the riven faults. 

A wake of poplars 

point North 

like wagging fingers. 

She will live to the age of 49. 

(My mother was a whirler)

She will exit the mud 

door. Her in- 

(Orbiting, spun moon 

contin(g)ent be ing 

will torrent (out/forth)—loosed with bladder and bowels—
stars . . . bodies . . . objects . . .) 

on the backseat of the car, 

upon the body of her youngest son,

—the sanguinary 

blacktop riving into 

anti body 

pentamers

before they leave the driveway.

branching limb from limb