Not Today
Julie Weiss
when measured through a mother ́s eyes.
Three streets, a hike through a forest
or a journey across a river. Dare me
to hold my breath underwater that long,
I tell my daughter, and I ́ll drown.
in gorges, voracious enough to swallow
a lone child on a quest for sweets.
a chrysalis, camouflaged between leaves.
We ́re safe here, she insists, oblivious
of her pencil. She ́s already forgotten—
last summer, the ominous strangers
The girl who almost didn ́t graduate
kindergarten. On our strolls, I hear voices
Muffled shrieks as they ́re snatched
into a passing car. Nine is too old to hold
clattering under her sandals as she crosses
to the opposite side, the bit of independence
puppy on her birthday, also the 35th
anniversary of my childhood friend ́s
she sees friends mazing their way around town
unaccompanied, thinks the world is like
and cotton candy. No malfunctions.
No fiends hiding behind clown make-up.
When can I go alone? she asks again.
I say not today, toss warning after warning
over her objections, miss every time.
Julie Weiss (she/her) is the author of The Places We Empty, her debut collection published by Kelsay books, and two chapbooks, The Jolt and Breath Ablaze: Twenty-One Love Poems in Homage to Adrienne Rich, Volumes I and II, published by Bottlecap Press. Her second collection, Rooming with Elephants, is forthcoming in 2025 with Kelsay Books. “Poem Written in the Eight Seconds I Lost Sight of My Children” was selected as a 2023 finalist for Best of the Net. She won Sheila-Na-Gig´s editor´s choice award for “Cumbre Vieja,” was named a finalist for the 2022 Saguaro Prize, and was shortlisted for Kissing Dynamite´s 2021 Microchap Series. Her work appears in Chesnut Review, ONE ART, Rust + Moth, Sky Island Journal, and others. Originally from California, she lives with her wife and children in Spain. You can find her at https://www.julieweisspoet.com/.
© Variant Literature Inc 2023