Poem for My Mother

They came for my father.
Poems like quicksand
usually every time he cried
or drank himself to sleep.
And now,
three years later,
though her eyes are dry rocks,
they come for my mother too.
The poem of her hands
moving through her needle work,
of her pink, slippered feet
and the red of her crooked nose.
The poem of her life,
all 53 years of it,
two children and one grandchild later.
The poem of denial:
Not her son!
Not her baby boy!
The poem of my longing
to see it through her eyes,
to see me
pissing myself in frustration.
The poem of that night-
in a parking lot of all places
and the way she smelled my secret
before I made a peep.
The poem of her love,
singing and touching and holding
only as a mother knows how.
The poem of anger,
rich as an egg yolk,
poisonous as raw meat
and enough to stop a heart.
The poem of her breasts
slowly becoming her mother's,
her sneezing and her laughing too.
The poem of cold mornings
and crawling in with her,
then,
before it was difficult,
Before I forgot how to touch her.
The poem of our conflict,
though she loves to say,
"What conflict?"
as if I'm crazy or something.
The poem of the facts:
she says she'll never change,
not even for a blink,
and I know I can't.
The poem of the pain that causes.
The poem of my pain.
Of hers.
This poem.

Sil