I
“I am your mother” you say as if there was a doubt—my questioning – is not doubting –
It’s trying to find how my
Loud laugh came from your
Silence.
Your lip twitch became my lip
Bite,
Your sniffle my throat
Clearing.
How you became you, and I,
Me
Separately but together, the way trees and leaves blend in the breeze.
I’m looking at you now –
You –
With your short
Callused
Dark hair
Darkened with known pain no mother of your own.
Darker with arthritis clogging your fingertips making it hard for you to keep a grip on my
Limber
Hand, darker,
With a deeper, wooden tone than my thick
Smartass chestnut hair – it plays, teasing you, on my wide
Cheeks.
“You are my mother, you are my love – heart – soul – you taught me how to walk” you smile because now we are walking, my hand holding yours –
Like that day on the
Playground.
Then my chubby crayon
Fingers tingled
Loudly
In your calm
Palm.
Right now I feel your cold, tired
Fingers warming themselves in my still chubby, warm
Fingers.
We’re walking along the sidewalk on Nassau Street. By Teresa’s where I get the Marguerita
Pizza. You –
The pizza salad. Past Ann Taylor where you try and get me to buy their
Bland dresses. Almost at Thomas Sweets, the ice cream store where we’d go after school.
“We are the same” you say, afraid I can see the way my wide
Hips swing next to yours, gasping, trying to just barely
Bump
Your small trouser sides.
My hips are afraid to throw you over.
You deny my curvy nature as my ass
Bumps you,
Hides you
Tries to find you and you –
You are still blind as you lose your footing.
“it’s not big, you’re nice and skinny.”
“Yes , but we are not exactly the same” I say letting myself see my pale Irish skin,
Piercing against your darker, olive-toned French skin—
See your shoulders drown, blubbering for air beside mine. Our waists are easy
Together
Small. Our heads almost meeting—yours a little over me.
I don’t see you anymore.
You have left me, you have let go. My
Hand
Is in space. You are in your own face. I see it through the window of the store I don’t like that you’re in.
I forget its name.
You return, this time on my side not in my hand.
Our voices have hidden because of tension.
II
Fever rising, spinning images of stuffed
Animals on my palace, parlor cream
Walls. My dry mouth like strict
Sand never pausing, never stopping – she touches my hair
It’s sticky—she slips it on my
Scalp. Fingers soothing my boiling skin.
Beep. The thermometer reads 101. 102. 103.
hmm.
It hits 105, and Mom’s afraid but she won’t tell me, doesn’t want me to worry about her or me. Puts ice cubes in my mouth, taste like bland tea, they’re clinging to my tongue and it hurts. But I just don’t have the energy to complain.
She wraps me up in blankets, covered with flowers and hearts, blankets I got when I was baby. Their thick fabric makes me sweat like I had secrets to tell. I am motionless, tired and apathetic.
I’m going to run out and get some more stuff that you like. Do you want ginger ale?
saltines?
I nod.
Don’t move, I’ll be back.
I smile, I couldn’t move if I wanted to. But it makes me happy that she is here with me, even though I am 16, sometimes it’s nice
To be mothered.
III
“I want to go home” my voice flitters over the phone, I’m crying, I’m sighing
I don’t like sleepovers. I like my friends, but I hate sleeping away from
My cat, my mom
I go because I should, I go for my friends but I never go
For myself.
“Try and hold it out, honey” my mom wants me to be more independent she wants me to grow up but she doesn’t yell, or force me. If I want to go home still in a few hours, she’ll come get me and take me back to my clown
Sheets and soft bed.