LISA ALLETSON
Spectrum
My daughter wears my DNA like a casualty,
drifts through conversations with melodic logic.
When she speaks in the language of our ancestors
I know she’s caught something with her mind,
a spinosaurus, or a Disney cartoon.
She grows deep, a creature of thrum and ashes.
When her school day spins bright, she rocks
tick-tock to find a kind face. Comes home
bent with hurt. In the evening she wraps herself tight
in an old breeze, wanders the playground
to feast on leftover laughter, blown kisses
fallen to the ground. I find her shivering
beneath a tree, her skin discarded on a rock.
Life after life, she sobs. Too much.
I wrap her under my ribs. We dance
to the sound of unfurling leaves
sing to the shift of birch bark.
She hears everything.
I don’t call myself an autism warrior.
I harbor night creatures whose heads hang low,
blood-wet wings stuck to their bodies. By morning
I turn them out. They unfurl and fly.
At night they return, watch me,
cold planets in my throat.
Previously published by The League of Canadian Poets
Lisa Alletson grew up in South Africa and the UK, and now lives in Canada. Her writing is forthcoming or published in New Ohio Review, Eunoia Review, Sledgehammer Lit, Trouvaille Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, Beyond Words, among others. She writes daily on Twitter at @lotustongue.