Allen Rasmussen
About Allen
AV Rasmussen recently moved to Decatur, where they teach English composition at Millikin. Through Writers in the Schools and various college and university programs, they've had the pleasure of encouraging and teaching poets of all ages. Their poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, and their plays, which often contain poetry, have been staged in Dallas, Wisconsin, and New York.
Auntie Em to Dorothy
I was born in the eye of a tornado,
My mother howling down a well.
Dust rustled along my schoolgirl legs
and curled up between them,
shaken loose by the preacher
and mixed with my blood.
I was crucified.
Crucified again at fifteen
My husband hammered the nails;
the pain, the farm, the empty womb.
I bled in vain.
I filled the cradle
with scraps for quilts
and planted forget-me-nots
in baby bottles.
And then you came,
your dead mother,
my sister, bleeding
from your eyes.
Not exactly glory hallelujah.
You ran from me. You defied the dust.
No man ever crucified you,
So you grew wild.
You would never be a woman.
Did you think those jars of jelly
were for me? Or the candles dipped
so delicately in wax? I was born
for laundry and solitude.
What were you born for?
I would throw myself between you
and the thunder and the whirling
waves of wind that battered
my door. I would hold
you in my arms until
the storm passes.
But you went to Oz.
Why have you returned?
Why do you crucify me again?
Contact Me
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