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Kathryn Anne Lutzner
Date of Birth: 3/10/69
Location: Washington, D.C.
Email: Kate_Lutzner@discovery.com
Previous Publications: The Antioch Review, The Squaw Review, Mudlark, Big Bridge
Awards: Robert Frost Poetry Prize while a senior at Kenyon College
THE WOMAN AND THE CHILD
i used to build a story in a box. a mother
and a father made of maybe
some sort of stick, two toothpicks
for daughters. that part was always
the same. my mother objected "they're too
thin" so i tried two celery stalks
instead. "they'll rot" my mother
pointed out. i forgot about the box
for a while, forget about the two
daughters and their inevitable
deterioration. i think it was a week
later i looked in on them. the mother, still
some sort of stick, had fallen
asleep on the bed. the father was
wedged between two common
household appliances. i pried him
out, but there was some damage.
i must have carried the box
across the room to have him situate
himself like that. or maybe
the daughters, before their demise, had arranged
him. my mother supported the former
theory. her usual take on things. "forgotten blame"
she called it, which had no room
for guilt. i stopped playing with boxes
after that. something about having
my imagination stripped
like a bed. the prints her hands left
on my house too real for its
inhabitants.