Happy 79th Birthday to my mom!
As her memory goes, I wonder what I am responsible for. Am I the holder and keeper of her memories and secrets? When can I tell them? What does my brother know? What does she remember? Is what I know true?
I do wish my mother happiness, but it seems an elusive wish. She says she has always been lucky, lucky to have come to the United States and to have found the life she did. But her childhood tells a story, not of luck, but of trauma. I wonder how this fits into her definition of luck; but I will never ask her.
I titled this selfish because I am not using my post today only for a birthday wish for my mother. I don’t really think I’m selfish, because it’s my blog and I want to use it just for that—for myself. But I do feel guilty a tiny bit. I think being a mother, a daughter, a wife, means I always have a tiny lingering guilt. I am sure not all women are like this. I wish I could shake it, but apparently I am not yet evolved to that point. Perhaps this could be my Christmas wish for myself or my New Year’s resolution.
I have snippets of writing lately, nothing coming out whole cloth like I used to have. I know, honestly, most of that needed heavy editing anyway.
What do I wish for? Better poems, more poems, dream poems, publishable poems, poems that will make you swoon, will make you weep, make you laugh, make you buy my books (what books, twinkly? oh, right), fruit poems, frozen bud poems, bloody blue poems, pink poems, feather poems, leaf-and-snow poems, mom poems, wife poems, marriage poems, sex poems, fuck poems, love poems, fucking poems, magical poems, clear poems, anatomical parts poems, important poems, a-political poems, no-more-guns poems, deep poems, no-murky-bits poems. Enough! This kind of thinking is so anti-Alexander Technique that I can hardly continue to allow myself its luxurious indulgence.
Here are 2 recent poem snippets:
(SNIPPET ONE)
When Shall I Be Delivered
I begged for more from the world
It started inside
a pinprick
where I was once attached
You have not delivered me
With each bout
of bleeding
my density increases
alongside my insatiable hunger
My marrow
pumping erythrocytes
for every drop
that falls
Not much
they always say
a few tablespoons
If men bled
they would find
a more poetic measure
than cups and spoons
(a woman’s place is in the kitchen)
But I know the feeling
of the soldier
draining into the muddy earth
the sand with its greed
taking more than its share
pints and quarts and gallons for drenching
I am ready for the firing squad
or operating theater
I am ready for my uterus
to be yanked out by
its mooring ligaments
No scars
only
a virginal torso
left
I didn’t need you any more
anyway
But thanks
for the ride
(SNIPPET 2)
December 17
My mother is a husk
a Christmas walnut
cracked open
The meat of her
gone
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