Jennifer Jackson Berry

MOTHER'S GHOST

a mouse in the skeleton
the bones of this house

a home if the only scurry is
the scurry of a rodent        you lumber up
stairs with laundry baskets only holding
your own dirty things cleaned

this mouse is brave

or—it might have been

(sad you still think you could keep anything alive
inside)

a tree branch against the cold window

Jennifer Jackson Berry's first full length collection of poetry The Feeder is forthcoming from YesYes Books in late 2016. She is also the author of the chapbook When I Was a Girl (Sundress Publications, 2014). Her poems have appeared most recently in journals such as The Paterson Literary Review, Red Paint Hill Poetry Journal, Toad, and Whiskey Island, as well as the anthology Political Punch: The Poetics of Identity (Sundress Publications, 2016). She is the Editor of Pittsburgh Poetry Review and an Assistant Editor for WomenArts Quarterly Journal. She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and is a proud member of the Madwomen in the Attic writing workshop