Brooklyn Copeland

SSa Veuve

Not guilty, non, mais defensive. See, she busies

her hands with a teapot that looks sat-upon:

an ancient, cast-iron affair. Her day-old chignon

falls like a challa loaf against the nape of her neck,

against the starched-high collar of her dress.

Her only dress? With an undarned tear? Mais. Mais non.

Some mess. But at least she'll have casseroles for days.

She did get the house, after all. Yessir. Mais oui. She.

This lopsided saltbox affair. But three hundred years

is a drop in the bucket, where she's from. Nee Mort-on,

after all. Pas d'amour, after all, in this sloped gable histoire.

His story, not hers, according to the kids. They say she talks

of this house as if she's already torn it down. Defensively,

she reminds them they had all flown, having grown.

Having abandoned him to her alone. Sûrement she deserves

a little extra for all his mother's recipes. Those unhealed

hickeys-scars. And those tics who buried their heads in her

when she lay, gagged and pliant, in this unkempt yard.

Brooklyn Copeland was born in Indianapolis in 1984. She has since lived in Florida and throughout Northern Europe. She co-edits Taiga, a new journal of poetry and translation. Her personal blog is Alsace-Lorraine [brooklyncopeland.blogspot.com].