Waiting

 My mother’s motor is always racing. 

Get going! Hurry up! She's a blitz.  

But I keep staring at the wet pavement,

I am counting cracks and maple bark

soaking in their sweet sweat, I'm far inside

the humming world

and before I know it I’m flat in the street,

a motorcycle wheel spinning on my back 

on Columbus Avenue, the driver 

kneeling and praying beside my head.

I'd run too fast across the street--

hadn't dared to keep my mother waiting.

And now I hurry her along. 

Time to go! Let's not be late! 

Now the widow stands on her one good leg, 

chain-smoking on the porch, 

coat on, doors locked, impatient for this ride.

I fold her walker, hear her grunting, hear the lowering

of her crippled self into my car, hear the nervous 

hurried motion from not wanting to keep me waiting. 

I could have touched her with my palm. 

I could have have said, Please take your time.

Fire

It is a ghost my mother says 
that wakes her up that evening 
when the flames spill
in her house like water.

It is that tap, that gentle rap 
against her arm, she has no doubt, 
that wakes her to the scent 
of hell nearby. 

She wishes, wishes very hard, 
that God be somewhere, but never can 
affirm it.

And yet she swears He sent that ghost 
to her that day. 

My mother trusts in two opposing truths at once:
God really does, and really does not, exist. 
Like life, God happens only when 
all things stack up just right.

Good morning

Mornings are life at its best; you sniff 

the mints in the moist air--so clean so fresh
(if you don’t rush, if you savor)
with new growth--and you catch a raucous 
opera in the trees, the first sip of French Roast, 
all distracting you from the future
(you forget there’s even such a place)
and your desire for an easier--for an eternal--
life and yet you’re quite aware 
that somewhere a clock is ticking 
with possibility.

At the sink

My  mother chops with fury

at her kitchen sink.

I stand beside her jabbering, So

if I’m 10 that means you and daddy 

were married 11 years ago! 

Her head swivels.

Stop that stupid talk!  

(I didn’t know the truth till later.) 

For this, indeed for all her odd 

mutations, I never blame myself. 

We come from different worlds.

Hers in ruins behind her, 

mine right here in front of her.

Still I do my best to please.

Bought her a little St Theresa,

(her favorite  saint) 

with my babysitting pay.

Oh how she hates Kool-Aid stains 

on my shirt, the sound of bubbles 

popping in my mouth, that immodest 

laugh I got from her,  how my hair 

sweats on my head like seaweed. 

Pull that hair off your face!

Once in a rage, she hacked it off.  

For weeks, I wore headscarves to school.

That’s what you get for being so American!

It wasn’t just her mood talking.

It was the old world singing in her then.

Flight (When I was 15)

A helicopter carries my mother

to the next town where there’s a room

that can stem her bleeding disappointment.

I do not miss her gaping eyes,

how they rob me of nerve, my real self, 

or how her mouth whips the air into

storms and hail stones.

But for a time, when she returns,

chloroformed, my mother has no more 

longing for what she lacks. Her throat 

bursts at times with song, all her rancor 

and despair seems burned to ash 

in these cheery, most welcomed

holocausts and I want to throw some flowers

at her feet.

Utter relief

What a peerless--what a blessed 

feeling.

What an unwinding!

More than mere relief, 

which is exquisite, 

utter relief stops your heart. 

It’s what you feel when the police say, 

We found your little boy. 

When the doctor says, 

Your blood count's back to normal. 

Utter relief is when the body 

explodes with exuberance, 

when the cold, wet peck you felt 

on your cheek was not the lips 

of  monster death 

but a small cold drop of winter rain. 

My friend and I ramble along a beach. 

She stoops to touch a crab, 

the life gone out of it, 

turns the shell in the sand,

in a gentle voice asks, 

Isn't God's work amazing? 

Her face shining clear as glass. 

The splendor of the ocean 

and what spills out of it stirs her 

just as it stirs me. 

I wish you knew God loves you.

She says this kindly, knowing my grievances:

Life’s cruelty, its utter futility, 

the extreme mystery the God she

loves insists on.

But why spoil her moment 

with my unease? 

She only wants to share this thing 

that’s changed her life. 

And yet I must complain, not gently. 

Life just stumbles along on its own, 

merely rises up from nature’s patterns, 

and one day will vanish. 

She lifts her face to the clouds. 

Utters not a word. 

But I can tell she’s praying for me.