Poetry: Mary Coleman

Mary Coleman

Feathers

you came

and stomped all over my good intentions

with a pair of iron soled boots

mangled my wings 

with a pair of garden shears

shards of bone

and bloody feather

hanging limply at my shoulders

you left

with my dignity

stowed away in a shoulder bag

alongside some dirty underwear and a toothbrush

trampled my petunias on the way out

crushed all the roses with your hands

red and pink and yellow petals strewn about

and threw stones at the resident crows

who marked your face in their eyelids

so you linger like a foul taste

every time they close their eyes

***

The Door Downstairs

No one’s going down there.

Not without 70 permits

signed by 70 different bureaucrats

all due in two days.

I’m keeping the entrance boarded

with a sign warning:

“Beware Of The Leopard!”

And there are radioactive cockroaches

patrolling the stairwell,

just in case someone gets any ideas.

The bolts stay fastened

and the cracks you might peer in remain welded shut

(provided you make it past the cockroaches)

for as long as air

finds its way into my lungs.

And with that last breath the whole damn place

will be torched until it is nothing but feeble embers.

My body,

the only evidence,

gone with it 

into crumbled ash.

***

Keepsake

the weight you carry

suspended from your heart

is one heaping bag of buckshot

a keepsake handed down  

alongside diamond rings and gold watches

***

To My Younger Self

hug your mother

like you’ll never meet again

squeeze hard and refuse to let go

if you do

she might scatter in the wind

like dandelion seeds

***

Forgiveness 

fog obscures the beach

but I can still make out my mother

a shadow walking 

alongside a lone seagull

she knew

she knew everything

but as I see her fade

taken back into the sea with the mist

the same sea 

where I left her 14 years ago

I long to run into that water 

and tell her

I understand

***

Bio: Mary Coleman is an artist and poet based in Portland, Oregon. She lived in New Zealand for 11 years, where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Art and Design. A recent arrival to poetry, her work has appeared in several quarterlies. You can explore her visual and written work at https://www.fivebluemarks.com or follow her on Instagram @ehloaf.

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Setu, August 2025