Three Poems by Molly Kelley

A Quality Skull

I have a quality skull.
I could find it in the dark.
Stripped of its skin.
I could hook my finger through the eye socket and know.
Non-plastic, insoluble.
I got this. It’s mine, but I could find yours too.

---

A Memory

Digging through my memory.
Unearthing the crypt.
In my infancy, this is where I stored controversy.
Now, it’s the architecture of my time here.
The composition seems different.
A shadow creeps down the landscape, and I know it’s free.

---

A Pine Bassinet

My mom had a pine bassinet upstairs.
I bit the rails to see if I could leave an impression.
It floods in Iowa.
Her baby doll stared straight up, lifeless.
A gash in the porcelain.
A moldy smudge but no voice.

---

About the author:

Molly Kelley lives in Iowa City, Iowa, where she studies Rudolf Diesel.  She is the living expression of her father’s Geist and a constant source of disappointment to her mother.  Forthcoming work to appear in Donut Factory.