Salt Girl
You cannot make a pillar
stay put forever. Wind
scattered my crystals
to the lands beyond our city.
There I found my husband,
swam the beads of his sweat,
slept in the corner of my son’s
tired eye. I know I’m not your
favorite-disobedient daughter.
I know I looked to the fire,
the place that was my home.
I know I forgot your words,
went my own way. But Father,
you also forgot I had a name.
I am Ado, more than Wife,
a word that means trouble.
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M. Brett Gaffney is an MFA student in poetry at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and associate editor of Gingerbread House Literary Magazine. Her poems have appeared in The Medulla Review, Mad Rush, Precipitate, and are forthcoming in Ruminate. She hopes to one day own a pet stingray.
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Wonderful