By the Sink

Mother stood Daughter on a chair,
gave her a little knife
and a bunch of bitter roots
like red clown noses.
Showed how to scrub them, slice
the ends off, cut their tips
round and around,
then drop them in cold water.
Those cuts would open then
like lids or lips.

A female art:
sharp blade, sharp chill,
made sharp-tasting dolls' hearts
into radish roses.

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Arlene Weiner's poems have appeared in journals including the Paterson Literary Review, Pleiades, Poet Lore, and U.S. 1 Worksheets, and in anthologies, and have been heard on The Writer's Almanac. Arlene was awarded a residence at the MacDowell Colony. Ragged Sky Press published two collections of her poems, Escape Velocity (2006) and City Bird (2016). Arlene maintains websites for Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop and Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange. She also writes plays. Pittsburgh Playwrights Theater Co. produced her play Findings in 2017, and Carlow University Theater performed her monologue "Clothesline" in 2018.