with my ear to the carpet
the cathartic words
emanated from his lips
the drumbeat heavy on my skin.
wrapped in blankets
that couldn’t keep me warm
i played the tunes
time after tenuous time.
my mother came in
stood in the kitchen
dishing up the pasta
singing right along.
she never noticed
the untouched plate
the hours on the couch
or the music that i couldn’t turn off.
i stand here now
wrapped in winter coat
that can’t keep me warm
and remember the heartbreak cold.
we’re a cookie train
decked out in
conductors’ clothes:
Brownie and Daisy,
brown and blue,
multicolored patches
glistening in the sun,
red wagon behind
brimming with
a rainbow of boxes
tied with
red, yellow, green, purple
ribbons,
blue and white cards,
working our way
through the melting-snow streets
to bring a little happiness
on a Sunday afternoon.
Inspired by Scotia Nightpoetry
it’s been fourteen years
since she didn’t die,
has lost all the weight
from last year’s birthing
(shed it like washing
silt from her hair)
and rests her hopes and doubts
on the same survivor shoulders
that carried her
from innocent adolescence
to harrowed adulthood
the same survivor shoulders
that fourteen years ago
all of our tears fell down upon,
all of our hopes and doubts
couldn’t hold up
as hair fell in chunks
onto the bottom of the bath,
her youth (our youth)
disappearing as quickly
as the drain
could carry it all away.
it’s been fourteen years
since she didn’t die.
between now and then
the scars on her face, neck
have shaped her into
the woman, the mother,
the researcher of life
who carries her hopes and doubts
on the same survivor shoulders
that led her into the life
her dreams once told her she could live.
we had uninvited guests
uninvite themselves back,
an impromptu invitation,
and our simple plans
of pot roast with
potatoes, parsnips, carrots,
mini-quiches and veggie pies,
tortilla chips and salsa,
butterscotch pudding cake
and French vanilla ice cream,
and kids as excited as
tree-swinging monkeys
for the one night of the year
that they can eat dinner
in front of the television.
it’s like a holiday
without the hullabaloo,
and our lack-of-sports
Sunday routine
can be broken
for this one night of the year.
with aching muscles
i nestle into the leather couch
surrounded by strangers,
our children
piling on top of
giant silver foam blocks,
forming friendships
as quickly
as the silvery flakes falling
outside the wall
of white-framed windows.
i watch the snow slither
into the city,
the silver titanium points
of this art museum
a perfect picture frame
of the silvery cityscape of skyscrapers
standing tall against the winter.
it is all warmth here,
all smiles,
and we could stay all afternoon
or forever in my memory.
i read her
sometimes misconstrued
words
that slap
our media-mocked society
with this
thick piece
of modern literature.
and i wonder
as i look at their faces
shuffling in and out
peaked smiles
defensive responses
invariable isolation
which one of you
i want to ask,
would take this horrid day
this horrid combination of days,
trap them in a bottleneck
until
the
whole
world
explodes?
Isabella
is it an act of defiance
once again, or a child
wanting to be a child,
dashing into the night,
rolling down the hill
until bits of dried grass
stick in your Brownie vest
like petulant pieces of glue,
causing me to shake your shoulders,
my flustered fingers unable to remove
from your almost-eight tangles
the frustration your actions bring?
or is it me, your end-of-day tired mother,
unable to remember those hills
i rolled down as a child,
petulant pieces of green grass
imprinting triangular shapes on my skin,
as i hand over your punishment
on display for your peers to mock,
only to later see the stack of cards
on my nightstand, the supplicant sticky,
“these are the thank-you cards i rote,”
your grammatically correct misspelling
tugging at the mother, the daughter,
we were both meant to be?
Mythili
with two top teeth missing,
you blend into the crowd
of second grade girls
for a weekend of camp.
you are the youngest
of twenty, demurely asking
for help with your pajamas,
with the needle you can’t quite thread,
but singing along with the songs,
joining in on the games,
snowshoeing into the woods
as if your teeth had already sprouted,
as if you had already skipped
over kinder and first grade,
my little one wanting
to be all grown up.
Riona
from the moment of birth
after twenty-four hours
of fighting to emerge,
when you made less than two peeps
and settled in next to my skin
for a peaceful night of nursing,
to the quiet child who follows
Daddy to a job and speaks not a word,
who cuddles silently on the couch
with a fever that you’ll tell no one about,
i truly believe,
my youngest, angelic child,
that you were born
without a single complaint in your soul.
we are girls becoming women
and women reliving girlhood.
all it takes
when times get rough
is a dodging-traffic drive
a sled down the mountain
endless screaming and dancing
a squished spider’s funeral
meals for twenty-eight
movies all night
and
the elixir of life
breathing wintry air on our skin,
popping out our souls
on the goosebumped flesh.
we are girls
girls
girls
becoming women.
it is true what i say:
i have no idea who you are
or why he married you
or why it is that
you put your hands on her
whose sting
carried over
into the shadows of my childhood.
i know i wouldn’t be here
spitting out these vicious words
if it weren’t for
your egg, his seed.
and i am thankful for that.
but your countenance?
your picture in my memory?
it is nothing more than
a vague recollection,
a fuzzy image,
rough around the edges,
someone who couldn’t remember my name
nor cared to ever learn it.
when you go,
tears will be shed,
but not mine, nor my mother’s.
we all know this is true.
you have lived your life,
given purpose to what we want:
to be better mothers,
to stretch our love
into those shadowy places
where your hands couldn’t reach.
what they’ll remember
is this fire that
shuts out the frigid winter
with a crackle and zip,
a whip to the wind;
this shuffling of places
on the couch,
bottoms in laps,
blankets bundled in
heaps of warmth;
this mother with arms
wrapping love around them
as they switch places
and fight for their turn;
this father playing monster
from the floor,
his whiskery face
lit up amongst the flames;
this quiet game that
lets all the talks out
and erupts in unsuppressible
jubilant giggles.
what they’ll remember
is nothing else from
this day,
this night,
this part of their lives,
nothing but
love and warmth and happiness.
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