my mother is eating chicken bone
Mckendy Fils-Aime
& it is the first time i watch
an invasion. her teeth cracking
into the broth-boiled cavity.
her tongue: a thin, wet spoon
with no time to scoop the marrow.
she is crunch & crunch & swallow
her napkin never holding the remnants.
a haven for the twice devoured.
her mouth a plunderer of potential
or the dead end of a street called salvation.
sometimes i wonder if she has loved this way.
Mckendy Fils-Aime is a Haitian-American poet and educator living in Manchester, New Hampshire where he is a co-organizer for the wildly popular poetry reading Slam Free or Die. He is a Callaloo Fellow whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Journal, Atticus Review, Word Riot, Gyroscope Review, Electric Cereal, and elsewhere.