Memories of My Mother<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Talking to your friend, Mickey and Joan and I watching.<\/p>\n
You said to your friend, \u201cI always said when I grew up<\/p>\n
I was going to have five children born two years apart,<\/p>\n
and they\u2019re all going to have black hair and blue eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then, motioning to us, \u201cAnd there stand three kids with<\/p>\n
brown hair and brown eyes!\u201d<\/p>\n
It was my first gut punch.<\/p>\n
I was six, maybe seven years old.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no need.<\/p>\n
It\u2019ll never be noticed on a galloping horse.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The kids were asking you questions about your life.<\/p>\n
You said when Mike was born, you and Daddy<\/p>\n
really wanted a boy.<\/p>\n
And when Moni was born, you both really wanted a girl.<\/p>\n
Pointing at me, they asked \u201cWhat did you want<\/p>\n
when she was born?\u201d<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t matter, you said. You already had one of each.<\/p>\n
Later, when I said you had embarrassed me, you asked,<\/p>\n
What should I have said?<\/p>\n
\u201cYou should have said you wanted Me!\u201d<\/p>\n
And you scoffed and said, \u201cOh, Posh Tish!\u201d<\/p>\n
And walked away.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I remember what street we were on.<\/p>\n
We were talking about being safe around men.<\/p>\n
I suppose you thought you were giving life advice.<\/p>\n
You said you\u2019d rather be killed than raped.<\/p>\n
What I heard was that you\u2019d rather I be killed than raped.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
You chortled \u2013 yes, chortled is the right word \u2013<\/p>\n
and said, \u201cThere\u2019ll be a war in twenty years.<\/p>\n
Lots of baby boys are being born.\u201d<\/p>\n
It went all over me, that you would say,<\/p>\n
that I was raising my sons<\/p>\n
to die young in a war.<\/p>\n
How was that even thinkable to you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Memories of My Mother You thought I wouldn\u2019t understand, I guess. Talking to your friend, Mickey and Joan and I watching. You said to your friend, \u201cI always said when I grew up I was going to have five children born two years apart,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1150,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1150"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57119"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57569,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57119\/revisions\/57569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}