Poetry

Jordan: Poetry by Abigail George

Image: Peggy2012CREATIVELENZ via Flickr
Image: Peggy2012CREATIVELENZ via Flickr
Image: Peggy2012CREATIVELENZ via Flickr

JORDAN

Mum’s blue dress is mine now.

As if her anxiety, her manna was not enough. Her golden cell has become my prison. Life is like that. Very much a waterfall once you turn your back on it. Making drawings of chairs and toys. From childhood. It starts with a botanical memory. We are not trees. We move on. If you were brought up in church. Her lungs are a signal. Lost to her children. She is the flying sun. Moonlight and Valentino. I think she wants to take a lover. Here comes Jordan. Here comes the River Jordan. Here comes Moses. Here comes Jonah and the Whale. Her flesh is still beautiful. The blue dress when she wears it is still elegant. The words that come out of her mouth are in parrot fashion. There is a waterfall in the pleats of the dress. She sings gospel out of tune. She is an inglorious mother. She goes to spiritual meetings. She speaks to mediums.

Is she in need of a psychiatrist? A loving husband? Children who adore her? On the other hand, a god who will listen to her.

——————

© Abigail George

Image: Peggy2012CREATIVELENZ via Flickr

About the author

Abigail George

Abigail George’s fiction was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She briefly studied film at Newtown Film and Television School in Johannesburg. She is the recipient of grants from the National Arts Council, Johannesburg, Centre for the Book in Cape Town, and ECPACC (Eastern Cape Provincial Arts and Culture Council) in East London. She has been widely published from Australia, to Finland to Nigeria, and New Delhi, India to Istanbul, Turkey and Wales.
Her blog African Renaissance can be found online in Modern Diplomacy under Topics.
She contributed for a year to a symposium on Ovi Magazine: Finland’s English Online Magazine. She is a poet, fiction writer, feminist thinker, essayist, and a blogger at Goodreads.

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