Symphony

christmas fills
the memory black holes
with dusty red ribbon, with pictures
of a different childhood,
with shortbread cookie
tins full of peppermint bark

like the kind my father ripped
from my mouth at age seven
swearing that it had been poisoned
that the ones we loved wanted us dead

while in the kitchen
my mother stood alone
oven-burns searing, a
colorless flash seeping
from the wound
of another holiday, one way
before i was born

she tells me that i screamed
the first time i heard
the nutcracker–
a child’s intuition
soon after choked
then soothed

By Zoe Blue 

Biography:

Zoe Blue writes about hope and the many colors childhood takes on in memory. Her work has been published in Little River and Electric Cereal. In June she put her first e-book, Redemption Center, out into the world. More of her work is forthcoming on her portfolio blog, byzoeblue.tumblr.com.