"Worry Lines" by Kara Goughnour

Worry Lines

It is eight in the morning and my mother 
is convinced the microwave will catch 
this house on fire, all plugs unstuck
from their sockets and snaking about 
the floor. It is always something like this —
the fish poisoned, the basement on brink 
of flood — but fire prevention is her favorite game. 
My mother is a small scream
of a thing, ever-slinking in suspicions, 
ever flicking ashes from her bone. 
My mother picks ghosts from the drywall,
sweeps the dust up and lays nightmares 
out to dry. My mother, fingers laced 
with every ribbon of electricity sparking
under this metal roof, spends her life parrot-like, listing 
reasons we both will surely die.

Kara Goughnour

Kara Goughnour is a writer living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They are the author of Mixed Tapes, a part of the Ghost City Press Summer 2019 Micro-Chap Series. They are the recipient of the 2018 Gerald Stern Poetry Award, and have work published or forthcoming in The Bitchin' Kitsch, Third Point Press, and over fifty others. Follow them on Twitter and Instagram @kara_goughnour or read their collected and exclusive works at karagoughnour.com.

Headshot: John P. Maurer

Photo Credit: Selin Öğüt