low down and pressed close

to the heart we thought wiser

though she overlooks the neediest

claiming by animal logic

that failure to nurture may prolong

her strength

four-walled, held and milkfed

pure need threading unlit hours

so soft as to be almost undetectable

against the palm

stumbling to wake

it pains our pale eyes

to open

we have handled ourselves

as if we were mewling things

no bearings

concealing pliable, untested bones

and useless claws

as if we wouldn't fast become the

calculating mother who

consigns one to the shadows, unfed

as if innocence affirmed

our right to breathe

as if we were in need of

mercy

•••
Ellen Gould lives in Oakland, California and discovered in a recent time of crisis that poetry is how she stays intact. Her poems have appeared in OpenDoor Poetry Magazine and Jet Fuel Review.

Ellen is a graphic designer/illustration agent and graduate of California College of the Arts, where she studied poetry with Michael McClure and Rae Armantrout.

“milk teeth” is dedicated to Eliza Blue, who in June 2020 watched her hometown burn on the late news while bottle-feeding an abandoned kitten. It turns out she had named the cat Mercedes, Spanish for “mercy.”