On Being a Mother

So often I have written about my own mother, and father too, as I try to depict their last journeys, and my childhood. I am mixing it up in honor of Mother's Day, so my kids will know I write about them too!  One for the girls, one for the boy.

To Daughters I Did Not Birthe

On Mother’s Day

At first, we were polite,

thrown in to the stepfamily ring,

like boxers eyeing rivals.

Later, I cajoled you

to clean up your rooms.

When that failed, I called in

reinforcements. You still

spoke to me in the morn.

I have whooped and hollered

for your accolades,

cringed for you, at the invite

to mother-daughter teas.

I have sighed over the neckline

of dresses worn for prom, boys

you were dating, boys who were friends,

your health, happiness, and your hair.

We have called out names -

none worth repeating -

beneath fiery breaths.

Your pain has been mine,

as my mother slides

towards her immortal state.

We become the best mothers

when our own are gone,

though we still try

to measure up to memory.

Because you already understood,

perhaps its been you

these 2000 days

mothering and tending,

encouraging me

to step from the ring.

5/1/12

The Elegance of the Teenager

Your years have been pressed together -

between peanut butter sandwiches

or crusty glove and ball,

milestones disappearing in the crush.

You gesture for me to order first,

eat enough to wreck my credit,

save salad for dates with a girl.

You are happy on the track

splayed out in the sun,

after a solid 100m run.

“Ask anybody, they see me smiling.”

watching the scene, eyes full of poetry.

Later, we dance, quelled only by

awkwardness, The Piano Man,

and a baffling line dance,

in a gym corralling hormones

and sweat.

Prince drones on,

“Never gonna let the elevator

 break us down, oh no, let’s go

let’s go crazy, punch another floor.”

We stand - my shoulder to your waist -

for this musical jaunt

where the night has captured

all your teenage possibilities.

 3/26/12