My Mother in Love
1. Reading on the Stairs
My brother has a gun, again
He wants me to play war
I’d rather read about war
Destroyers and battleships
Sailing for the coast
Torpedos, rockets, ammunition
Bombs, a knife for every man
tucked in his boot
A million gallons of gasoline
Rations, compass, smoke grenades
A raincoat, bandolier
Three thousand tons of maps,
two thousand tanks, and paratroopers
He’s aiming at my head, again
He thinks he’s hiding
They carried syrettes of morphine
They sang, “give me some men,
stout-hearted men
who will fight for the right they adore”
Five beaches:
Gold, Sword, Omaha, Utah, Juno
From here I can see her
My mother, there, in the chair
in the kitchen
Is she hiding, too?
2. Dinnertime
Sideways across the chair
Not moving, lying there
She looks like a forgotten doll
She looks like laundry
I can’t tell if she’s breathing
She moves but makes no sound
Her shoulders go up and down
A song on the radio
Filters in very faintly
She turns, she lifts her head
She might move—instead
She faces the table and she sets down her cheek
Like a book, like something heavy
Her shoulders go up and down
There’s motion though she makes no sound
She looks like she might be laughing
She looks like she looked that time
she laughed so hard she rolled right off the couch
My Dad was there, he helped her up
I remember her laughing
They were watching TV
I remember her laughing
I remember how everything felt,
when she was laughing
3. My Sister
My sister has a date tonight
She can’t decide what to wear
My sister just turned seventeen
She does weird stuff with her hair
Sometimes my mother makes her change
Sends her back upstairs, she says,
You’re not leaving the house like that!
Why would she even think of wearing that?
Here comes my sister down the stairs
Ready to fight it out
My mother doesn’t lift her head
I guess tonight she doesn’t care
4. Spare Parts
I am disassembled
I am spare parts
My cheek is a book
My head is a bowl without use
My chest is a thin plate
My leg might be a hammer
My hands are so far away
Hearing hurts
Each tick of the clock makes a cut
But that song on the radio
was a murmuring pack of knives
I turned if off
I don’t know how
My hands are so far away
I gave it all to a man
Who appeared at the door,
selling things from a case
I signed the form
Said, take everything
It’s such an old story
Why did he
How should I
Will I be able to
When did it
What did I
If I had
What went
That time we
What if I can’t
Why did he stop
5. Powers
My mom has powers
I always wondered
I kind of knew
She thinks she’s invisible
I would want to fly
More than strength, or X-ray vision
There are other powers
Like elasticity
Immortality
Having a genie in a bottle
Having E S P
(Which stands for extra sensory perception)
I would choose to fly
Over having super speed or
Time travel
Underwater breathing
Talking to animals
Scaling walls
I heard her saying
That she is invisible
6. Lament: Invisible
I am invisible
No longer seen
7. Laughing
I remember him
I remember how everything felt
8. Fierce
She’s talking on the phone
I can hear her voice
I can hear her saying,
I told him not to call back
Told him not to contact me
I asked him not to write
9. Reading Before Sleeping
I pretend that I don’t hear her
When she says turn out the light
I don’t blink, I keep on reading
When she says it’s time to say goodnight
Her voice is close
I don’t look up
She’s smiling, I can tell
I know she knows I know she’s here
Soldiers slept in cold ground, they dug trenches
They took turns keeping watch
The enemy could appear at any time
Now here’s her hand, her fingers land on the page, so close
Time, she says, it’s time
I hold my book, she says,
Don’t make me take it
She always says that
We could say it together
She says it every night
Some soldiers lost their hands,
Their arms, their legs
Did they think it was luck not to die?
So many died—sometimes they died
From trying to save each other
I like it when her hand lands on the page
So close to my face
There’s a dent in the skin of her finger
Where her ring used to be
Time
Five, Four
Three, Two
One
It’s dark now
I wait
She kisses me
10. Okay?
Will it be okay?
(Will it be okay?)
It will be okay.
(It will be okay.)
How do you know?
No one really knows.
She says I’m not supposed to see her cry.
I should not see her cry.
Mothers should never cry.
It will be okay.
(It will be okay.)
I promise.
How do you know?
I know because we have to know
I have to know
Why do we know
Because what if I
why did he
Because we must console each other.
If we could not console each other,
where would we be?
Circular Argument
Not every song is a love song
And not every day is a day for all days
Not every day is a song
Not every love is a song for all days
A song for all days for a love that arrives and stays
Not every love is a song
A song can be less than a day nothing more
It falls away
A love can arrive and not stay
A day is a song on the day of all days
When a love sings a song
And stays for the dullest of days
I yearn for the dullest of days
For now and then a day is a song
Not every day is a love song
Not every love that arrives and sings
Stays for the dullest of days
For the dullest of days is the love song
I yearn for the dullest of days
When Girls Learn the Alphabet
ABCDEFGH
I’m an airhead bozo clueless dip
Eager foolish girl not hip
Innocent juvenile kooky lame
Missy numbskull one trick plain
She was very shy, it was temperamental
Or confused with modesty, which was required if you were a girl
In New Hampshire in the early seventies
And in lots of other places and times
Such as nineteenth century England
She read a lot of books that took place in nineteenth century England
She had time
When she learned the alphabet
Asinine bashful coy dumb empty foolish girl ho hum
Ignorant jackass klutzy loser moron nuisance
Ophelia plunging was never a queen
The language in her mouth became a problem
Here’s the story of a lovely lady
Who was living all alone
As Laura Ingalls Wilder was out on the prairie with her father Michael Landon
Sunday Monday happy days
Her mother was that lady but there was no man named Brady
Busy with his own three boys
Her husband was not Michael Landon
ABCDEFGLMNOLMN
Girls were not allowed to learn their letters
In so many places and timtes
The alphabet was property
Girls could not own property
They themselves were property in so many places and times
Such as nineteenth century England
She read a lot of books that took place in nineteenth century England
She had time, books, TV, Brady Bunch on ABC
Her mother had no money in the early eighties
But what’s that got to do with the alphabet?
What’s that got to do with
Airhead bozo clueless dip
Eager foolish girl not hip
Innocent juvenile kooky lame
Missy numbskull one trick
Princess for a day
A princess for a day can be broken forever
ABCD Eve ruined everything
FGH Iphigenia caused so much unfavorable weather
JKLMN Ophelia was kind of a princess
But never a queen
The Very Air
(He makes me want to taste air, eat up the air
There’s such a thing as delicious water)
My life is out of order
Young parts coming late
I had to get so old before I could feel this young
And in love
There’s such a thing as delicious water
You’ve had it every day of your life
And yet your eyes can go wide tasting it
If you’re thirsty
Or happy
He makes me want to taste air
Makes me want to eat up the very air
Why the Dialectic?
Interview on the radio
She’s a star
Everybody wants to know
How she’s come this far
Where does it come from?
How does she write a song?
What gets her going?
Does it take very long?
There’s this concept called the Virgin Whore
It’s really cool
It’s the idea that as a woman
You can be a fresh flower
You can be pure and innocent
You can be dangerous and seductive
Virgin and whore
You can be both
I was thinking of this
A professor driving in her car
Listening to the radio
She heard the star
What was she saying? This girl FKA
Had her facts wrong
She was mistaken
Yet so secure and so calm
There was this man
His name was Sigmund Freud
It’s his idea
It’s all about the limitations
Of the minds of men
It’s how they see us
You can only be one
Madonna or Whore
You have to choose
Or let them choose
The professor driving in her car
Began to wonder how things got this far
What was an idea? What does anything mean?
Where does it come from?
Who gets to decide?
That star on the radio sounded so free
She sounded secure and so calm and so free
Tell me who gets to decide
Who owns an idea?
When Terry asked Lizzo is she knew about history
Lizzo shrugged said, Watch me while I make it
My body only means what I want it to mean
I just don’t get it—why the dialectic?
Why this binary red blue black white up down hard soft
Isn’t everything connected?
Does a hundred years of thought
Just drift out of sight
And what about the past and our political fight
Does she really think Freud did not get anything right?
What if I wanna be a virgin wanna be a whore
Wanna be seductive Want to be pure
I am pristine and I can fuck
I am a vixen and a goddess what luck