RAE HOFFMAN JAGER

Unresectable Childhood

Because we wanted to
wear out our muscles, our will
 
we took chainsaw, shovel,
and lopper to the honeysuckle.
 
When that didn’t work,
we tried poison,
 
digging
them out from the earth
 
and stomping their vein-like roots
under our feet.
 
In the name of girl scouts
everywhere, we wanted to control,
 
colonize the invasive green,
bring order, pathway.
 
Somewhere then,
I became a woman
who awoke into her body
 
how strong it felt
to move with conviction,
to occupy.
 
Each week we returned
to the brush and hacked
 
a bit more away.
Each week it grew back,
sharper, denser.
 
And because I was not alone
and certainly stubborn,
 
eventually a trail emerged,
hazardous and temporary
 
and it led me home,
and I looked at my house
that summer
 
which I had never noticed before
stood upon cinderblock,
 
bamboo bursting through
all the cracks.

Rae Hoffman Jager is the author of One Throne (2017). Her book, American Bitch is forthcoming with Kelsay Press in 2022. Rae's poetry has appeared most recently in Juke Joint and The Moth. She has work forthcoming in New York Quarterly. Her work has been described as rambunctious, urgent, funny, and elegiac. Rae holds a BA from Warren Wilson College and an MFA from Wichita State University. For more information, you can visit her website at www.raehoffmanjager.com