Still: The Journal

Two Poems by Tina Parker

Mother-Daughter 

I have grown girls
In this body
This ground
Has grown me
As a girl I watched
My mother squat
In her garden

The story would grow
Sweet had she taught 
Me to work those rows
But I watched from the deck
Her body strong             a separate       
Solid ground grew in me

Daughter-Mother

I have grown girls 
In this body
This ground 
Has grown me
My daughter brings the seedling
Home in her backpack
         We have to plant it today
         Today mama or it will die
         And water it 
         We have to water it every day

The baby would have been
                          A girl
She would have grown 
                         Tall 
Like her sisters
                         A sunflower

We dig deep
We water
But the seedling grows brown 
Leaves I teach her 
To pull them off
And wait for green

Tina Parker grew up in Bristol, Virginia, and now lives in Berea, Kentucky, with her husband and two daughters. She is the author of the chapbook of poems Another Offering (Finishing Line Press, 2015) and the poetry collection Mother May I (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2016). Her poetry has received support from the Kentucky Foundation for Women, and individual poems have appeared in Rattle, PMS: poemmemoirstory, Appalachian Heritage, and Still: The Journal. 

return to poetry                      home