Today's poem is by Jessica Cuello

I Nod When the School's Visiting Doctor Asks If I Eat Three Meals a Day
       

In my family
you recreate invisible

and freeze like a rabbit.
You do not cry—

God can read your mind.
In my family, you lie

in the snow and dream
how your birth happened:

the rough edge of the tabletop,
the knuckles of the artist father

who paints all night in a disease.
Then leaves and leaves. No one

confesses anything.
The black and blue mother

scrapes herself together
and into the world comes

a baby with her mouth open.
In my family you tame your needs.

You bite—but don't chew—
the winter leaves.

You drink milk-white snow
from your mittens.

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Copyright © 2023 Jessica Cuello All rights reserved
from Liar
Barrow Street Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission