But instead I’ll write about my sore throat.
Are they related? Some say, pains of the body
are feelings held on to by tissue and cell,
unexpressed like milk hardening in the breast
of a new mother, whether the baby lived or not.
The body still makes its milk. My daughter
told me I have an antenna, no matter where
she is in the world, if she is having trouble,
I somehow send her a text. To her this is proof
I always know. But she doesn’t know
the texts I compose in my head,
ones I erase and never send, ones I swallow
with a coffee or rosé… not today, not today. I wanted
to think I could parent well enough to ward against
aches of all kinds, to protect my children
from their generation and mine. A healer
told me the throat is governed by the 5th Chakra,
which beats blue as a butterfly. Throat pain,
a symptom of unexpressed emotion, of holding on.
I like to hold on, resist letting go. I know
there exist words I could say in perfect time
in exact order that would let my daughter know,
I do know. I see you as you are. I understand.
My throat aches. A doctor says it’s my thyroid.
Don’t worry, they wear out in every woman over a certain age.
The cyst is solid, solitary as a spy, likely benign.
She tells me not to worry, that they can remove it,
that I don’t really need it to live.
Linda Carney-Goodrich is a writer and teacher from Boston. Her first book of poetry, Dot Girl (Nixes Mate, 2024) was a finalist for the New England Poetry Club’s Sheila Margaret Motton Prize. Her poems have been displayed at Boston City Hall and have appeared in Lily Poetry Review, The MacGuffin, Literary Mama, Muddy River, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Gyroscope Review, among others. Linda is Poetry Coordinator for the Menino Art Center and owner of Home Scholars of Boston.
