1
What if
2
What if the only way
she could write again
required a white cup
3
And the cup,
would she pour herself
into it? Or, rather, bring it to her lips.
4
What if
5
What if she held the cup very close,
by its delicate white handle,
and whispered into the hollow.
6
Something like—
I was five, and he said
pick mulberries with me;
I could show you the tree
on which they weep and sway.
And her mother held her chin
and said, tell him no…
it would spoil your hand-sewn dress.
—L.L. Barkat, from The Novelist, T. S. Poetry Press