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"Asphyxiation" by Michael Estabrook

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She insists

she was in the room witnessed

her mother kneel on the floor

stick her head in the oven

after turning on the gas

asphyxiating herself to death.

“I was only three

but remember like it was yesterday.”

Of course it didn’t happen that way.

According to the

obituary article she wasn’t

even in the kitchen or the house

when her mother took her own life.

But I don’t correct her anymore.

She’s 92 now and

for some reason needs to take

this memory to the grave with her.

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Michael Estabrook has been publishing his poetry in the small press since the 1980s. He has published over 20 collections, a recent one being The Poet’s Curse, A Miscellany (The Poetry Box, 2019).

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