A new piece, very very rough
A Mother’s Gifts
I’d say it was stark
the way the student drove
on the wrong side of the road
side-swiping my mother’s Toyota
She pats its dashboard
like a schoolboy’s head
there, there; good car, good car
We listen daily to the story
of her first driver’s test
new to America,
fresh from her Nazi father
bribing the proctor
with a twenty
while her hands shook
She’s slipping
and
I’m slow to wake to it
When I finally see,
I want 50 bucks
to bribe my way out
I want my one call
from my cell
not to a lawyer
but to God
to shake his shoulders
and ask why
he left her alone with me
The car still needs to be fixed
the college student stays ignorant and votes for Romney
I live the hell unimagined
the one dream in which
my mother
does not know
who holds her in the death bed
I have to wake in an hour
and send my daughters to school,
my Flower Girls,
and me in the middle
twinklysparkles 