Marci Ameluxen was born, raised and currently lives in Washington State and for most of her life has lived on islands. When not taming her garden or writing poetry she works as a pediatric Occupational Therapist, and currently lives on an island in Puget Sound with her husband and two kids. Her poems have appeared in Literary Mama, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Tattoos on Cedar (Washington Poets Association anthology), and she received 3rd Prize in the 2005 Hackney Literary Awards. Marci is completing a chapbook about growing up with a schizophrenic mother, of which “Mythology” is an excerpt.
the child was tiny all things
were warm
including the river
then winter came the river became ice
the ice was imperfect and left a hole
there’s nothing to do the child’s
doctor said, the hole’s in her heart
it will murmur at the night
soon ice covered
all her world
another mother
not her own
gave her a sweater
of uncountable threads
each day the sweater
must be knit anew
each night Penelope, unraveling,
shows her how.