Morrow Dowdle
Contest - 2nd Place
Morrow Dowdle is a poet living in Hillsborough, NC. She released her first chapbook, Nature v. Nurture (Artagem Graphic Library) in 2018. She has published poetry in numerous journals and anthologies, most recently Sunspot Literary Journal, Adanna Literary Journal, Poetry South, Dandelion Review, River and South Review, and NonBinary Review. She was a Pushcart Prize nominee in 2018. She also writes graphic novels in collaboration with her husband, Max Dowdle, including An Unlikely Refugee. She currently works as a physician assistant in mental healthcare.
The Ride
It's a space only she could inhabit,
the slender distance between my body
and the back of the dining room chair.
It’s a space only she would think to enter,
this only body who has lived inside me,
climbing into this narrow gap,
so close that she has to wrap
her arms around my belly,
her legs around my hips to fit.
We could be sitting on a motorcycle,
faces hopeful in the chrome,
driving out for the first time
testing life as parent and child,
tranquil in this seat
as wind whistles through our hair.
She has no idea what I’m packing
in these saddlebags, no conception yet
of a three-generation hiatus
on love between mothers and daughters
and how far we’re going to ride
to end it.
the slender distance between my body
and the back of the dining room chair.
It’s a space only she would think to enter,
this only body who has lived inside me,
climbing into this narrow gap,
so close that she has to wrap
her arms around my belly,
her legs around my hips to fit.
We could be sitting on a motorcycle,
faces hopeful in the chrome,
driving out for the first time
testing life as parent and child,
tranquil in this seat
as wind whistles through our hair.
She has no idea what I’m packing
in these saddlebags, no conception yet
of a three-generation hiatus
on love between mothers and daughters
and how far we’re going to ride
to end it.