Any Measure by J.L. Lapinel

You are so weird
was the most loving thing
my mother said
and
you speak Spanish
that sounds like Armenian
but her arms were smooth
and smelled like bread
and she would let me write on her feet
in pen
and rasp off the letters
in dusty callus powder
my words shredded and dismissed
below her little undefined feet
with unspoiled
perfectly aligned toes
two sizes smaller than mine
My seat
the floor beside her feet
not on the rug – it’s Persian
And her, so large
over my head
looking down her straight eyelashes
and ski slope bridge
assessing my features
for blackheads
and whatever else
had gone out of place
I didn’t make you that way
she would say
between the licking of vanilla ice cream
between the white
and the pink of her tongue
between her
absolutely perfect
plump lips
____________________________________________________________
J.L. Lapinel is a Latinx writer and educator from Manhattan who is presently an MFA candidate at UMass Amherst. Her work appears in Yellow Arrow Journal, The Wellington Street Review, Cambridge Collection and North American Poetry Review among others. J.L.’s work was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2019. She can be found on Twitter @jelelasp.

