"When You Find a Box of Torn Photographs in Your Parent's Closet" by Jude Marr

When You Find a Box of Torn Photographs in Your Parent’s Closet

your torn genes, unframed: your cardboard hair, once scar-red: threads
history stole: an ego, naked

(deliver me)

sequenced images, nailed: your kiss-curls, your reliquary hair: still
you, without hair: roots wrapped around

(cut my umbilical)

you, but old: hanging on my arm: a twisted pair, heartwood-boxed
and sepia-worn: a mirror-glimpse, now cracked

(let go my hand)

threadbare portraits: one rag-edged eye, pupil-drilled: smiles cursed
and kind: a double helix inked across my cheek.

Jude Marr

Jude Marr (they, them) is a Pushcart-nominated nonbinary poet. Jude’s full-length collection, We Know Each Other By Our Wounds, came out from Animal Heart Press in 2020 and they also have a chapbook, Breakfast for the Birds, published by Finishing Line Press in 2017. Their work has appeared in many journals in the US, the UK, and beyond. A native Scot, Jude recently returned to live in the UK after 10 years of teaching, writing, and learning in the US. The transatlantic connection remains strong, though. Jude is currently on the masthead at Animal Heart Press, and they are also delighted to be a Poet in Pajamas for Sundress Press in June 2022.

Headshot credit: Lanie May

Photo Credit: Staff