Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
Truth at my brother’s oil change shop is few customers
and beauty is the woman who drives her car over the pit, accidentally
steps on the gas instead of the brake, pinning a man to her hood,
shattering his back through the window. Beauty can be broken,
can be a crumbling hospital like St. James where I was born
in the hallway because the doctor was too slow. Of that story
my mother can laugh, but birthing my brother, she was knocked out
against her will with gas. She woke to find bruises all over
her baby’s head. Truth means that the doctors’ names
are not part of the story. That after years of telling and retelling,
my mother sees what she can bear. A…
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The American Poetry Review (Digital) - 1 Issue, July/August 2017