You levitate with guilt because you ironed a man’s collars in place of his mother. Pressed yourself into a neat pleat, removing the septum ring, growing out the side shave at his demand. So concerned with how you’ve damaged your daughter by what she has seen. You want to talk about epigenetics? The compulsion to singe a hot iron into the back of your own hand was not born in you, darling. Your great grandmother laundered her husband’s shirts, paired her children’s tiny socks, before hanging herself from the mantel, limbs stiff as starched linen. — CARSON WOLFE
Carson Wolfe is a Mancunian poet. In 2021, they were an Aurora prize winner and a Button video contest winner. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming with Fourteen Poems, Rattle, The Penn Review, and Button Poetry.