Reading Sharon Olds

“I put my arms around a trunk and squeezed it,

Then I lay down on my father’s grave....

When I kissed the stone it was not enough,

When I licked it my tongue went dry a moment, I

Ate his dust, I tasted my dirt host.” -- From The Father

Such wild, such passionate 

       

exaggeration! 

The way this poet makes oceans 

       out of tears, 

     

volcanoes from pimples— 

     

         entire solar systems—

from self-immolation,

writing herself into its burning center, 

    

 shining so extremely, 

    

     a star on the verge of collapse,

gulping her father her mother—

     

       those lifeless planets trapped

     

in the poet’s gravity. 

The mass of her grief astounds me—

      

      light years thick with pain—

not theirs--

       but her own unquenchable.

It’s what draws me closer, turning the pages.

Her  ache at first unimaginable, 

     

       but more and more real 

and becomes my own. 

With every line, she peals away

     

      my peach skin, cuts me open, 

drops me pitted 

    into her deep cup, 

into its radiant sludge, me too 

     now soft and bruised,

so tender she could eat me

     with her gums.

Scents

When he opens his mouth, I inhale the hops

of Papst Blue Ribbon, the toast of Lucky Strikes,

Gillette's sandalwood floats from him, so too the

copper scent of deer blood and the opossum he slams 

against our house and boils unshorn. 

(He could have shot it--he keeps

rifles in the house.)

He’s not a family man, my grandmother warns

but my mother runs from her broken down country,

its wiped-out illusions, to New York and then regrets it 

immediately and every morning to that morning when my

father’s liver gives out and even after that, right up to when 

my mother takes her own last, she regrets it.

He tells her he’s sorry. He says so just before he points

to eagles circling above his bed. 

He says, I know when I'm right and I know 

when I'm wrong and I was wrong.   

That’s not good enough for my mother but it’s good 

enough for me.

The Boy Next Door

My room is small. 
A twin bed stands
beneath a window
where every night
across the street
Tommy’s mufflerless
chevy rumbles

up to his house 
with a boom. 

And next to the bed, 
a long dresser

with a column 
of  mayonnaise jars 

where lightning bugs
flare like comets.

I count the comets 
until a light
shines on my window

from Tommy’s house
and I hear Tommy 
turn on his shower.

I count the moments
until my room turns still
and dark again
and I go back to counting
the sparks
in the mayonnaise jars.

One Last Mothering

There’s nothing to cry about.

It’s my mother’s voice speaking, 

Out of the blue, for the first time in days

Her eyes fly open like a doll’s.

There’s nothing to cry about. 

And there’s nothing to fear.

Her eyes flutter shut, her
Voice sinks back into its box
For good.

Alone in the room I still cry.
But now, upraised and thankful

For the shimmer above the clouds

For the waves of light in which
A thimble of flesh weighs more than a star

Where only souls survive,

And there's nothing to cry about, 

And nothing to fear.

Raising My Grandson

For a long time, 

I avoided the words 

Mom

Mommy

Mama

Mother

in his presence.

I didn’t say Jake's mom, but Sandra.

Not the puppy's mommy, but the big dog

Not my mother, but your great grandma.

He asked, Do I have a mom?

Other words I avoided:

Dad

Daddy

Papa

Father.

Adoption

Your children are so lucky,

we're often told.

Saved from a childhood of neglect

and maybe worse. 

Rarely mentioned,

we are lucky, too.

Saved from a life of self-attention

and nothing's worse. 

Copyright (c) 2012 Ellen McCarthy. All rights reserved.