Jenny Della Santa

Trying to Find My Mother in the Dark

Wait,
I’ll fall asleep soon
work dark
a spider
spinning post to post
a wake of lace
to cull you
from the hours lost
between the ear-marked pages
of your magazines
tissue-thin
edges unbound, lost
inside the creased ads
for last summer’s cruises
fingers tracing never-made recipes
unfinished crosswords penciled in
then erased

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Jenny Della Santa’s poems have appeared in Thrush Poetry Journal, Birdcoat Quarterly, Palette Poetry, Pretty Owl Poetry and other publications. She was an Academy of American Poets College Poetry Prize winner and nominee for Best of The Net and Best New Poets. She has an MFA from Mills College and lives in Oakland with her husband and young daughter.