What I Know to Be True
A gallon of water weighs
8.3 pounds. Seagulls
are always hungry.
My daughter’s name
is Nova. I am a mother.
I’ve lost a mother.
It happened so slow:
she became less and less
as the red of chemo ran
through her blood.
It happened so fast: chosen
by the birth parents a month
after paperwork. The blinkless
doctor saying Stage Four.
Then, the moments that hover,
fog over the gray Pacific: My mother’s
hands, liver-spotted against the pink
ocean of Nova’s newborn skin.
Her voice caught in the last chorus
of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”
I’m not sure
I’ll ever forgive.
My mother kept a gallon
of water next to her bed.
On good days she practiced
picking it up. One day, she said,
I’ll be strong enough to lift her.
–First published in the Adroit Journal
KELLY GRACE THOMAS is a poet, writer, educator, and an ocean-obsessed Aries from Jersey. She is the author of Future Tense (forthcoming from Alice James Books, 2026) and Boat Burned (YesYes Books, 2020). She is the winner of the Jane Underwood Poetry Prize and the Neil Postman Award for Metaphor. Kelly’s poems have appeared in: The Adroit Journal, Best New Poets, 32 Poems, Los Angeles Review, Sixth Finch, and elsewhere. www.kellygracethomas.com