While we are deeply grateful that Mother

did not keep our legs continually broken

in order to prevent our running away,

we would have much preferred her not

dulling our teeth to the point we were

unable to chew through those same legs

just above the jagged trap jaws.

One despairs we can protect each other

and/or our sanity from monotony when

in fact, the night’s no different from the day.

We must hurry or we will rot,

our tentative escape too demure

to crawl through shards of maternal dregs

to free ourselves in time, because

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R Hamilton (they/them) is returning to poetry as a means of filling the vacuum left after a fifty-year career backstage in the performing arts, a retirement handily but unexpectedly coincident with the pandemic. Since then, Hamilton’s work has been/will be presented by Boats Against the Current, Caesura, Dollar Store, Ekphrastic Review, Intangible, and Nightingale & Sparrow, among others.