i. I know where to find my mother. Her head is in the dishwater. Her feet out for a walk in cool puddles wandering the words for dear or foul-a little something to feed the others. Her heart is extinct and should be shelved in a museum of petrified artifacts. Her hands beat her chest as though there were something there. Or maybe it keeps her going, however odd the direction. Her lips float beside her in the sink. "It's all in the flow" she says to me. This means we need tampons. I've learned to read her. I may be the only one. Then again, I may be the only girl whose mother speaks an underwater language. A mother who serves poems for dinner. A mother with a hole where the heart goes. I visit. She shirks from me like a vampire, insulted by light.

ii. the warble is lovely beneath the bubbles and the glass surface throws the fire back at my precious child, whose tenacity is admirable. today she comes dressed in red, which suits her. my daughter is a flame-thrower in the circus. she sucks fire and expels it dragon-style-from her nostrils  ears  other orifices. i dreamed i was burned at the stake some centuries ago. i shudder. but my daughter, goddess of burn, relishes the flame. i am the only one who can calm her. i feed her sea-poems for dinner. i give her swimming lessons in summer. still, she flares at the slightest breeze. i hose her down often— twice we had to call the fire department.

"Managers of the wildlife reserve burn bushes to simulate fires that keep the prairie healthy" by Joel Sartore, National Geographic Image Collection

BIO: Rhonda dean Robison is a graduate assistant and PhD candidate in English at The University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Her concentrations include Creative Writing/Poetry, and Psychoanalysis, Literature, and Film. Robison has organized and participated in numerous collaborative events between poets and other artists and co-hosts a monthly creative showcase in downtown Lafayette, The Rhonda-Maria Experience. Her works have been featured in a variety of publications and media, including journals, newspapers, and film. Robison authored a screenplay, Buzzz, which was performed in downtown Lafayette, and is the creator of "poetry card collectibles," unique cards that combine Robison's poems and photography, contained in envelopes made from recycled calendar pages. Email: Rhon7159@aol.com