Sally with the Accent

By Kevin Ridgeway

 

Sally with the Accent

she’s from Yonkers
has white skin
white hair
and a bright smile
she used to do social work
and her insight means
she can finish our 
therapist’s sentences
and initiates 
the growing
process
of others
so much
until she stops 
responding to her name
and denies everything
into the fog 
of disassociation
and waking up lost, 
not knowing
where and how
she’s found 
herself again.

.

About the Author: Kevin Ridgeway is from Whittier, CA. He is the author of six chapbooks of poetry. His latest book is A Ludicrous Split (alongside poems by Gabriel Ricard, Alien Buddha Press). Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Slipstream, Chiron Review, Up the River, Nerve Cowboy, The American Journal of Poetry, Main Street Rag, Cultural Weekly, San Pedro River Review, Lummox, Misfit Magazine, The Cape Rock, Plainsongs and So it Goes: The Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library. He lives and writes in Long Beach, CA.