My mother is only a year older than Husband which is, I guess, a little weird and sometimes quite funny. She herself has been battling some health issues lately and yet her strength, resiliance, generosity and support is breath-taking. This poem is for her:
When I was a baby, she scalded my face
With fire-kissed love
When I was a little girl, she beat me
At Scrabble
And Monopoly
When I was a big girl, she sliced into me
And removed the gremlins one by one
When I was a teenager, she terrified me
With her unexpected games of hide and seek
Then she lost my father….
She lost my father
But she found him for me again
When I was 20, she chased me to Europe and back
With her proud, protective angel wings
Then she broke my heart
Losing her breast
The pillow of my infancy
When I was 30, she destroyed everything I believed
About my ugliness
When I was 40, she broke into my house
Of dog-eared cards
And reshuffled me a new deck
She wrecked my basement
And built me a balcony
When I was 50, she put poison into my chalice
Turning blood-sorrow into silvery wine
She turned my stomach
Into twisting, twirling hilarity
She grabbed me in a headlock so fierce
So loving
So hot
That my breath wavered in awe
Of her strength
My anchorage
My sister
My friend
My daughter
My mother….
My mother
My
Mother
I wish I could be as good to her as she has been to me….
jmgoyder 