mottle : verb
to mark with spots or smears of color
use it in a sentence– the cow’s red coat mottled in white
the photo album in my sister’s closet– page 1:
my face before I can even remember being alive
mottled crimson by a myth
the mottled girl is a family secret
white like milk and glistening in the sun
a star shaped gash a carving
everyone wants gone
my mothers fingers in the scar cream
once, a girl I knew put her finger in the dent
like she could solve the puzzle by touching it
the right side of my face tilts to the earth
like it’s watching cover for me
while I look the other way
sometimes in the mirror I cover it with my hand
to see what I might have become in another life
where a tooth or a woodchip or a screwdriver
never met the child’s face screaming
bleeding into her mouth from her eye
if there had been stitches or a band aid
or anyone watching when the girl
cried until it scabbed and there was nothing
anyone could do (which was the only thing they ever did)
the myth was a dog or a low countertop I ran into, repeatedly
in one universe, I somehow didn’t feel the pain
gouged the medallion right out half-conscious
in the other world, the dog was off its leash
either way it is a blameless injury
but still, in photographs, I am turned
some part of me bearing the shame of my own neglect
embedded in me turning me over 90 degrees over and over until
my whole body knocks sideways
mottled
by the shadow
best practices
I tell myself I am leaving & it is the smoke climbing headfirst out the window
the first time in a tent grass rolled in a page of the bible
we swore
we’d breathe
the whole campsite
through our bodies
filter the ground up
from our mouths
I learned to grow
up
between my own
teeth & fingers
hold and light small fires into myself
I am building myself like a tree :
gathering myself
from the soot in the air
Anna Šverclová is the totally queer poet, director & organizer of Macalester College’s slam poetry team, MacSlams. They were born and raised in the Twin Cities suburbs and they cry whenever it snows. Over the years, they have become an expert in layering. Their secret? A journal compliments every outfit. Their poetry discusses sexual assault, generational trauma, and redneck fuckery. Their work has been featured in Macalester’s Chanter and The Rising Phoenix Press, and more is forthcoming in Storm of Blue, The River Styx, and Passages North. More about Anna can be found at annasverclova.com