Cloth & Sun 

Chaos greets me at the door—  

broken things swirl,  

dust motes through worn curtains,  

a breath before the next bruise.

You coil like an old cobra,  

fangs flashing rearview  

on that backseat ride home.  

I stare out the window—  

try to disappear. Wait  

for silence, then crawl toward sun.

The rearview still glows red

as real as these curtains

brittle, frayed, gone.

I linger—tattered cloth  

catches morning sun.

Rearview Mirror

My father drove.  

I sat in the backseat.  

He kept looking  

in the rearview mirror  

to watch his words land.

I stared out the window,  

counting telephone poles  

as they slipped past  

until the car stopped,  

until I could open the door  

and step out.

Later, at home,  

I pulled the curtains closed,  

their edges worn thin.  

I stood there  

practicing  

how not to be seen.

Between Tides

Some belong to people

tribes with tethered ties. 

I belong to shorelines:  

Chesapeake’s marshes,  

Virginia’s coastal ponds,  

the hush between tides.

I tried the house of kin

walls closed, voices crowded,  

names knotted my throat.

Out here, the air loosens.  

Salt wind unbuttons my chest.  

By motel glow on the water,  

waves pace my breathing,  

gulls wake me at dawn

home  

in the narrow place  

where water gives way.

Mary Whitlow is a former radio commercial writer and newsletter editor based in Williamsburg, Virginia. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Philly Chapbook Review, Mid-Atlantic Review, Rust & Moth, ONE ART, the Virginia Writers Project, and I-70 Review. Her work was selected for the final round of the 2026 Shenandoah Graybeal-Gowen Prize.

“man looking in rearview” by Richard Stachmann Free to use under the Unsplash License.