Poetry: Like Father/Like Mother/Like Daughter By Alinor Smith
Like Father/Like Mother/Like Daughter
Like Father
Are you mad at me? I wonder, clutched around the throat
by a man’s hand, dangling inches
from the tile
floor
which
by
now
will
be
cold.
Deep in the
grout lines
dirt settles
stains never leave
& I am now
the disposable
child.
A late guardian angel speaks: “that’s enough.” or
“it’s just his biology.”
or
“stand up.”
what’s it like to breathe
again?
Like Mother
(Shhh,
we don’t speak of this.)
Two grasped me that night,
and all the other nights,
guardian
angel,
because silence
is another kind of hand.
But, listen.
shhh.
we don’t speak of this.
Like Daughter
Before you—
I’ll save you the trouble:
I know male lions eat the young
that aren’t theirs
so since she isn’t,
I’ll make it quick,
clean:
underfoot peel ribbons of meat from
tendon like wet stray string on your hem
but where to put the long calico fur? it unspools in
clumps
to catch in my throat
and it twists
like me
for you,
i will choke it down.
look at my white shirt washed to a pale
bruised blue
by the hot cycle.
there,
red blooms above my breast
like it used to on my clawed hands,
emblazoned stripes
in our perennial scar garden.
Alinor Smith was mentored by Rita Dove during her undergraduate
career at the University of Virginia, where she earned highest honors from the
Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Her work received the 2025
Rachel St. Paul Poetry Award for Best Undergraduate Poetry Collection and has
appeared in VMag and ad infinitum. Her work is
inspired by Ada Limon, Eavan Boland, and, by and large, her own life. In
addition to writing poetry, she teaches high school composition and works as a
nanny and is based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she lives with her cat,
Stacy, and a man she loves.