If My Mother Wrote Poetry

I looked at photos of you today:

a stocky, tow-head toddler,

my firstborn daughter who once held so much promise.

There you were in all your innocence--

but were you ever innocent?

Your toddler's voice called out for your daddy

with delight, or to tell of some misfortune:

a skinned knee or childish disappointment.

It was never me you ran to for comfort or cuddling;

I was the odd man out, hovering on the sidelines

puzzled by your total indifference to the one who gave you birth.

When I walked away from that marriage

it was meant as a good thing: more financial stability.

One can eat only so many potatoes, after all.

Somehow my good intentions in starting a new life for us all

were overlooked, frowned upon: misinterpreted.

I was an adulteress, a harlot!

I put up with you as best I could

and though a mother should never say so, it was a relief when you went to live with your father.

No more reminders of my failure to bond with you

No more piercing looks on your intelligent little face

And then he--the one for whom I destroyed two marriages--

spoke in my ear of little girls needing their mothers,

bewitched me with his smooth talk until I gave in,

until I picked up the phone to inform you you must come back.

Well, I'd decided when I knew you were moving back in,

If she's going to be here she can damn well make herself useful.

You became my own little Cinderella. What pleasure this gave me

to see you work so studiously while your friends played outside until dusk.

I kept waiting to reprove you for complaining of your lot, but you never did.

I nearly hated you for that.



Oh, had I only known what a little traitor you really were!

What a shameless thief, stealing my new husband's affections,

seducing him with your psuedo-innocence

your dimpled smile and winsome ways.

A thorn in my flesh

pebble in my shoe: my firstborn daughter,

born to make trouble for me, to rob me of love's expressions.

Once you returned to me he never touched me again.

He didn't want me, because of you

and the promise of your young flesh.

I wish I'd never brought you back into my home.

I wish I'd never given birth to you.

But for you my marriage would have been happy.

I deserve happiness as much as anyone.

Looking at old photos brought it all back to the surface:

the resentment, the anger I felt when faced with my husband's fondness for little girls,

knowing good and well something was expected of me,

something I wasn't about to give.

I worked hard to get to where I was.

Did you really think I'd give it all up for you?

I don't know why I held onto these photos for as long as I have

but they're yours now.

I'm cleaning out my life, preparing for death to come knocking on my door.

What need is there for these black and white memories?

Get what you can from them (they are meaningless to me!)

for this is all I'll bequeath the little home wrecker who stole my husband.

Sacred Romance (Stay)

Sweet Ancient of Days,

Come to me wearing any disguise:

thorny rose
soft-footed snow
mournful wind
or rain tippity-tapping my window pane.

I will learn to love the snow because of you
learn to pick out the disparate notes of your serenaded love in melancholy music
in the fresh smell of cotton dresses steamed under the iron,
in the remembrance of my father's laughter, though now its merry swirl is not meant for me.

Wear wood smoke as your cologne
and autumn's vulgarity of colors as bold contrast to my drab little self.

Like a blind woman whose fingertips have grown accustomed to Braille
and to the unique texture of things, I will caress the barks of trees
the familiar landscape of knee scabs;

will tremble with the desire to be
the warp and woof of your weaver's loom,
my self woven (bones, hair and all) into a gorgeous tapestry,
another kind of tapestry than what I dreamed I could be.

Ancient of Days,

my dreams are too big for me,
my child's hands drop them clumsily
even as I blink back tears at my ineptness, my lack of grace.

I turn at the slightest rustling sound
my ears keen for your approach.

Oh! I love you so,
I betroth myself to you
to your light in my baby brother's eyes,
and to the sound of your lullaby meant just for me
in the sighing of falling embers
and in sun drenched streets I dare not explore without you.

Sweet Ancient of Days:

tarry with me one more hour
linger near while mother frowns over the stove
and the stepdad smirks at my stupidity;

stay lest my soul wither away
and I lose myself for want of you.

Stay. 

After the Storm

After the storm,

my brother
(all gangly knees and elbows)
bore the brunt of its ferocious aftermath.

Each day after school
I watched his wiry biceps bulge

as his handsaw scritched against the tree
fallen diagonally across our front yard.

The violence of metal on wood
pleased The King of the Mountain;
his greedy eyes shone
at my brother's razor sharp collar bone
vulnerably exposed through white Tee,
and at his jaw set in furious concentration.

This imposed punishment was meant to goad my brother,
meant to tempt him to rage
so that the next time the step dad slugged him
he would feel justified, holy even.

(Kneeling on scratchy couch to watch out the window,
I scrunched my shoulders
 and folded into myself like an accordion, to make of me something smaller.

Sucking in my breath 
I waited for the sky to rain trees
with swollen trunks, their branches thrust skyward
as if warding off a sickening impact with earth.)

My brother, it seemed,
must be punished for the crime of
his existence.

I wondered if The King of the Mountain had conjured up our
Columbus Day Storm  all by himself
for the sole purpose
of proving to my brother
that he had no right
to co-exist with him in the same universe.

I watched until my eyes burned
with the heat of repressed pity
and my brother, sweating and chilled,
laid down his saw
swiped his arm across his forehead
and, straightening up, met my dull gaze
with the scoured look
of shame sawn and whittled down into hatred.

After the storm, my brother cleaned up nature's wrath.
He stood a little taller and his eyes, when they met his abuser's,
burned unflinching.

After the storm we feigned collective memory loss
pretending that nothing in our family dynamic had shifted, roots and all.
We sat down to meals silent and repressed,

we picked up our forks
as if the step dad hadn't just won a major battle,
as if my brother's days in that household were not numbered.

Debut

I'm wearing your resentment
mother,
a garment woven strong,
seam-stitched
with the deceptively fragile thread
of your incalculable anger
at my existence.

The hem trails long;
I trip and stumble
as you watch through slitted eyes
this clumsy ballet of sour shame.

The pin curls wound
around your knowing fingers
wink their sly perfection
at my little girl ineptness,
at the folly of being me.

The Blossoming

Our wills clashed
over the wooden ring I coveted
and bought with my own money
on a family vacation.

What harm? I wondered
while you voiced your vehement disapproval,
leaving me with the typical worn to a nub guilt trip,
“Do what you want if you won’t follow the church’s teachings…”

What we fought
what we fought about, mother,
was more than the circumference of a smooth carved ring

perched cool on my bare finger:

You interpreted my budding breasts
as a kind of treachery,
and all my unadorned fingers

(with their unpainted nails)
couldn’t hide the fact of my blossoming femaleness.

I wore knee socks
with jumpers
longer than anyone else,
pretending not to see my classmates’ shiny nylons
on keen flashing legs,
even while my restless fingers ached to stroke their cashmere sweaters
worn with such brazen ease.

 Girls who mattered,
(the ones boys whipped around to check out
when their names rang out
during roll call)

held their manicured hands
in dangled fashion
like bunches of keys
attached to their wispy waists,
by which they gained admittance
to the cool clique with its
ratted hair
kohl rimmed eyes

 
and tentative petting
(over the clothes only) in cold  back seats.
Having nothing to prove
( for they had no need to earn their worth)
they could afford to set rules,
could dare to boldly cut their eyes
at panting boyfriends
and patiently slap away square hands
fumbling with nylon encased flesh.

You often accused me of stealth--
but I was not the sneak, mother,
not the pilferer
or thief.
I wanted
only what was mine:

to blossom naturally
without the topic of  my puberty
being the theme of jesting dinner time conversation.

For oh!  There are so many means
of hobbling daughters.
One has only to convince them
of their ugly pinched selves
while shoving begrudged flesh
into drab dresses and childish, outgrown jumpers
meant to hide a burgeoning beauty.

One has only to deny
the blossom on the rose
and, come twilight,
wilting has set in,

and with it
a kind of root rot
for which there is no cure.

Drooping, the head lolls
and caves in on itself,
Becomes another sort of obscenity:

the obscenity of beauty deliberately destroyed.

Thus decapitated
thus hobbled,
I knelt beside my bed,
knobby knees  stabbing the hardwood floor like knives,
my body swaying slightly with the wanting of it
knowing it was hopeless to ask
(but-- in for a pound in for a penny:)

Dear God,
may I please
please may I wear my ring,

and not go to hell for it.

Amen.