There is my mother in my hair (after “Orchids are Sprouting From the Floorboards” by Kaveh Akbar)/ poem by Carina Kohn

There is my mother in my hair.
Today the sun is swarming with my mother, beating
on my shoulders. The picnic benches are painted with my mother.
Nowhere to sit, but with my mother.
There is my mother in my thermos. She is diluted to
a pinch of orange peel in hot water. Paper-thin mother
in my pockets next to keys and gum wrappers.
At home, my brother watches my mother wilt by the sill.
Neighbors say he shouldn’t. Save my mother.
My father searches for her in the fridge, the driveway.
My grandmother searches the radiator, the dark of the VHS slot.
Before my mother died, she said:
I am searching, too.

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Carina Kohn is a writer, editor, and musician from New York. She received an MFA in Creative Writing and Literature from Stony Brook University and a BA in English at SUNY New Paltz. She is the co-founder and poetry editor of Moonlighting by Lit Pub. In 2023, she was an Artist-in-Residence at the Watermill Center, and she is a top prize recipient of 2022's Money for Women in Fiction: Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. You can find her work in The Incognito Press, The Brooklyn Rail, and Chronogram.

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