Patricia Fleming
CONTACT:
Email: patriciafleming.26@yahoo.com
BIO:
Patricia A.R. Fleming, artist, poet, and flower lover was raised in Cincinnati, OH and received a BA in Art History from Hanover College. After several years around Indiana, Fleming moved to Milwaukee in 2022 and connected with the poetry community through Tabi Po Poetry! and Woodland Pattern.
Much of Fleming’s work are contemplations of memories, relationship to femininity and their body, and transformation. Their poetry and art practice are outlets for their ever evolving self-mythology. When not at home with their cats, Fleming can most often be found in a city park, reading, sewing or playing board games with friends.
PUBLICATIONS:
Aside from a poem selected for a high school regional anthology in 2010, Fleming’s only other publishing as of 2023 is the poem, Plants, which was published in 2021, issue 3 of the short lived online zine GRITS Quarterly. However, Fleming, did complete their first personal poetry collection, Divided Waters, in 2019 and their second personal poetry collection, Water in my Lungs, in 2022.
Poetry
Inheritance
I swear I carry a curse in my chest.
It must come from my mother’s side,
For we have no tranquil hearts.
My great grandmother left her heart in a bed side drawer.
I can still see the outline of it like a water ring in wood,
Twice married she still spent more than half her life alone.
Twenty years my grandmother drowned her harmed heart
Till at last it was forgotten in a half empty bottle of whiskey
Such a regretful lamenting legacy.
Yet my mother holds her own heart precious.
Only bringing it out from her locked box
Like the gold jewelry my father gave her
Specially polished and gleaming for family holidays.
All charades and fragile adornment.
Oh affectionate organ my older sister tattoo’d,
After seven years of strange sadness
Her hurt heart to her own chest, wanting wounds
To transform and transmute her body tender.
Heavy marrow, terrible inheritance
Leave me a curse no greater than myself.
I swear on this scar, split me collarbone to collarbone
I will forsake this forlorn heart.
Persephone
Call me Persephone out on the street
Only daughter of heartland Demeter
Niece among nieces of Artemis, Athena, Hera
Call me lovely, lovely, lovely honey
Take care invoking the name of Aphrodite
You see me gentle
You see me lonesome
You see no challenge
Steal to steel
Countless bark and bite
Watch me sink my teeth
and
Emerge with pomegranate stains