Gumball Poetry - Poetry by Lisette Alonso

Lisette Alonso

Multiples

Eventually she found herself
drowning in babies,
licking formula
from her bone wrists and
shaking cornstarch from
brittle stalks of hair
where dark roots grew
like blackened weeds.

Sometimes she wondered
who would love a woman
with hips seven babies wide,
a woman with rubber nipples
for eyes and a scar
like a fixed grimace
smothered beneath
the cotton of her dress.

At night she dreamt them awake,
tiny toothless mouths,
gaping black ovals in a tangle
of dimpled arms and legs,
loud enough to scare
the quiet from her skin
and hungry enough
to suck their mother
through the neck
of a bottle.

I'm a 25 year old mother of two very cute and very evil children. I shuffle paper for a living at an aircraft maintenance facility, and when nobody is looking I spend precious company time playing Boggle on the computer, but we'll keep that between us. I'm mostly unpublished, but then again I don't submit often. Lisette Alonso Hialeah, FL

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Post a review of this poem.

4.14.2001
Ikars Justin Sarma from N Mankato, MN

Solid, realistic topic. 2nd & 3rd v. cry for some lexical clarity etc.
Topic is gripping, but a few fixes are needed. Does 'scar' mean Cesarean? "dreamt them awake" seems obscure, out of context. Commas can be omitted or must be used properly. One after 'legs' splits 'them', 'mouths', 'ovals' from "loud enough..." ,a phrase describing them. Appropriate changes would make this a 5-star item.

3.19.2001
Neil from Custer WA

Nicely formed
I liked the way the first stanza started, as if I walked in on a conversation in progress. The second seemed authentic and, whoa, very intimate. I wanted more from the third stanza.

2.21.2001
Arianna Apelgren from Kalamazoo, MI

shocked me a little
this poem scared me to be a mother. it's frightening to think that something so small can take advantage of something so much bigger. i didn't know it was possible to divide and conquer a human being. but i liked it nonetheless.

1.30.2001
Janelle from Deerfield Beach, FL

Speaks to mothers & women everywhere!!
Great poem!!