Are they wild or feral?

by Jennifer Jackson Berry

Wild means they live on their own, without help or interference from people. They do.
Feral means their ancestors were domesticated. They were.

Linen Birthday

 
I haven’t worn our baby in months,
not even on that sacred second Sunday in May.
Didn’t unzip her garment bag, didn’t pin
a new white rose on her lapel.
I thought myself post-commemoration.
 
But this week I woke with her, my pajamas
every morning sleep troubling fabric.
Then she was my pants dirtied by the bus seat
each morning commute,
my blouse’s wrinkled back.
She’s what I pulled and smoothed each time I stood,
what thinned and went cold with sweat.
 
I don’t bother ironing our baby—she never grows
flat. Hot dimpled triangle no weapon
against her insistence.
A shot of steam like a sneeze in the sun,
when it hurts to look straight at it.

August 6, 2017