Judith Skillman
Doppelganger
You there in the corner – say a word or two. Throw us something to chew on, some grass or a slender reed we might blow on until the tones rise and enter our bones like a Tibetan prayer bowl played by a bamboo stick. Come and answer for what you’ve done. What, mirror images? One left-handed, one right? In June the lilac rusts, blossom-heads welded like Siamese twins. June and the wild cherry drops stems for lack of bees to pollinate the sweets. We who were punished rather than tended, admit you hunger for our demise. Grow infantile. Slip from your mother one at a time bound by a cord. Fed by the same blood – the sun and moon stuck in orbit around one another.
Skillman’s eleventh collection of poems, Prisoner of the Swifts was released by Ahadada Books in July, 2009. Heat Lightning: New and Selected Poems 1986 – 2006 was published by Silverfish Review Press, Eugene, Oregon, 2006. The recipient of an award from the Academy of American Poets for her book Storm (Blue Begonia Press, 1998), Skillman’s work has appeared in Poetry, FIELD, The Southern Review, The Iowa Review, Midwest Quarterly Review, Seneca Review, and numerous other journals and anthologies. Please see www.judithskillman.com for more information.
