When I moved back in with my mother
I tiptoed around as if on mid-summer concrete.
I woke up wet-backed and in fists
as if born again from the hot belly of July.
I twisted her old promise ring onto three
of my different fingers ‘til one didn’t turn red.
She always let the cherry tomatoes roll around
like chunky beads before splitting them.
For months, she left the walls bare and photo-less
before hanging a river portrait.
Is that her humming in the garden?
She shimmies a pot closer to the sun.
Madison White is a current graduate student at the University of Manchester, United Kingdom, and a recent graduate of Wichita State University. Her work is published or forthcoming in The Passed Note, Panoplyzine, and Vinyl. She writes too many poems about her home state, Kansas.