The poet goes to the shrink
Jessica Lee
She is twelve. Tries to leave the house
in heels, but her mother won’t let her
out the door. No daughter of mine
is going to a therapist
dressed like that.
The daughter slams her
door and chucks her mother’s
wedding heels at the ceiling.
Don’t you see the irony she wants
to scream, these were yours!
But her mother doesn’t
remember. Why would she?
The marriage is over. That’s why
she booked the therapist appointment
for her daughter in the first
place. Kids need to express
themselves, you know.
Jessica Lee is an Assistant Poetry Editor for Narrative Magazine and an Editorial Reader for Copper Canyon Press. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in BOAAT, cream city review, Diagram, Fugue, Passages North, phoebe, Prairie Schooner, Zone 3, and elsewhere. She was a finalist for the 2017 Greg Grummer Poetry Award and the 2017 So to Speak Poetry Contest. She lives in the Pacific Northwest. Find her online at readjessicalee.com.