Mother of the Year
All night: lightning through the open window, dry incessant cicadas
take the place of the sound of rain.
Back home, my mother calls
to ask if I’ve seen fireflies yet this summer. She wore gloves
when she took the chainsaw to the trunks of the dying trees
that peppered my childhood backyard, she hauled them
somewhere to be burned on purpose and not
by these waves of heat.
In Virginia, I’m told to kill
every red lantern fly coming in through the screen door
but they’re quick and beautiful and one of my limbs
is the coward’s branch.
Sand fell from my bikini when I stripped down
in the Safeway bathroom, a line of women waiting for my stall.
Two whole minutes, negative pregnancy test.
At the stoplight I reapplied lipstick.
Every morning this summer, I washed ants from underneath
the fliptop of the honeybear and then threw myself into the river.
Dear earth, don’t make me get rid of anything else, I want you
to think this is beautiful because I want you to think I’m beautiful
the way my mother and grandmother does. Did. My grandmother’s
cake recipes came in the mail. When I took her calls, I could hear windchimes
through her voice, knew she was on the porch beneath a cluster of birdfeeders.
I don’t know
why nothing ever stops. My grandmother reported on how much of Texas
still smelled of death. All her flooded streets, animals bloated and rotting
on asphalt. How much she missed me.
I know
it can be good when something gives up on you. When you can
tell the difference between what is and isn’t true. Like
birdsong. Like Goodbye. Like wanting a child in the first place.
take the place of the sound of rain.
Back home, my mother calls
to ask if I’ve seen fireflies yet this summer. She wore gloves
when she took the chainsaw to the trunks of the dying trees
that peppered my childhood backyard, she hauled them
somewhere to be burned on purpose and not
by these waves of heat.
In Virginia, I’m told to kill
every red lantern fly coming in through the screen door
but they’re quick and beautiful and one of my limbs
is the coward’s branch.
Sand fell from my bikini when I stripped down
in the Safeway bathroom, a line of women waiting for my stall.
Two whole minutes, negative pregnancy test.
At the stoplight I reapplied lipstick.
Every morning this summer, I washed ants from underneath
the fliptop of the honeybear and then threw myself into the river.
Dear earth, don’t make me get rid of anything else, I want you
to think this is beautiful because I want you to think I’m beautiful
the way my mother and grandmother does. Did. My grandmother’s
cake recipes came in the mail. When I took her calls, I could hear windchimes
through her voice, knew she was on the porch beneath a cluster of birdfeeders.
I don’t know
why nothing ever stops. My grandmother reported on how much of Texas
still smelled of death. All her flooded streets, animals bloated and rotting
on asphalt. How much she missed me.
I know
it can be good when something gives up on you. When you can
tell the difference between what is and isn’t true. Like
birdsong. Like Goodbye. Like wanting a child in the first place.
Katey Funderburgh (she/her) is a queer Colorado poet. She is a current MFA candidate at George Mason University, where she also teaches literature and creative writing courses. Katey is the co-coordinator of the Incarcerated Writers Project of Phoebe Journal, and is a Poetry Alive! program manager and teaching fellow. Some of her other work can be found in Best New Poets 2025, The Rumpus, and Rawhead.
Beaver Magazine 