Bio

 

Mary Mills is a teacher of world languages. She has translated poetry from German to English, and her work, Voices of Theresienstadt, has appeared in Pacific Coast Philology. She also dabbles in poetry forms. Her version of an extended haiku is on www.newgrange.com as “Winter Solstice at Newgrange.” Her sestina, “SOMA” has appeared in The Potomac: A Journal of Poetry and Politics.

 

Trigger Warning

The circle grows smaller as each throb conspires
to rob my fingertips of feeling.
I can’t scratch away the darkness.

Battered nails and loose hangnails cling
to my fingers like small, dead fish,
slimy and slender; I can’t swim away.

The door latch raises; my eyes squint.
As dust particles float past, I see shark’s teeth
that grin from a nun’s habit, standing watch.

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