by Marianne Kunkel
A joke.
But really, I mean it—
cradle her warm, wiggly body
dripping in lace blankets.
Eggshell-sleek
face, eyes like dark pencil marks
gouging paper.
How do I know?
I scour black and white photos
just to trace her earliest curls,
knot of a pout,
low-hanging cheeks like
mangos swelling on trees.
No, I’m not
okay, never hearing her fussy cries.
Predestination, ancestry, I
quit.
Riddle me a world
so indulgent that I can
touch the start of her, count
upwards, Big Bang.
Veering downhill
with cancer,
X many months to live, she rasps
Yes at my offer to send flowers.
Zinnias, when cut, re-bloom.
Marianne Kunkel is the author of Hillary, Made Up (Stephen F. Austin State University Press) and The Laughing Game (Finishing Line Press), two anthologies, and many poems, including one in Best American Poetry 2025. She is Associate Professor of English at Johnson County Community College. She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Florida and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she was managing editor of Prairie Schooner.
Hawaii Pacific Review 