New poem!(not quite sure if the commas are working, innit) And, by the way, I am on the short list to having a poem accepted by a Sci-fi, fantasy mag, Adromeda in-flight, which PAYS for poetry. How insane is that?

Territory

Summer around our backyard pool,
I sat half in her shadow, the chlorine drying in my shivers,
and held her feet while she lay dark-glassed and silent
in the striped beach chair.

Her ruby toenails were the throats of hummingbirds
her freckles -- constellations foretelling my future
but the ragged patch
on her right foot, where the tan

seemed erased, drew my little girl kisses
because that part, that most naked pale skin,
was on my own foot in the same frog-shape

and it was by that mark I knew
no matter what she said,
she was my mother.