The Care Giver – Hour 13

I am a care giver for my aging mother. Not much humor in that. Bittersweet at times maybe, frustrating, yes! But funny not so much.   If it were anyone else’s mother with dementia I might find humor in how this lady dresses now. She…

moth

I hear the moth caught in the stickied light trap Unable to cry out in a way that I can hear   But the frantic beating of fluffed wings buffets my heartstrings just as well   I ache for it, feel sorrow that it suffers…

Hour 4: Epistolary poem

Dear Mom, You would have liked to know that your old home has an activist living in it, shown by a sign promoting change that you helped start but did not have the time to finish. More than 20 years have passed now, and the…

Black Widow Teaches

  Out here in the desert, Everybody bites, pinches, or stings. When my hound learned rattlesnakes were bad (I was grateful for the fence between them) My neighbor taught me to Pin its head and neck with something heavy Decapitate it with a shovel (don’t…

Floors

Floor beneath my feet Tiny feet Vast floors.   I remember floors Beneath my little feet. Desert sands and picnics. Bare floors and kitchen sets. Stairs and tiny rooms. Staring down and groped.   I remember floors Bricked floor And badminton games. Grassy garden And…

Mother #1

  The prayers are sound, everyone whispers the word of god. Whispers fade short stares take the place, Gasping for air, no one dares to take her breath Silence is sound and all around eyes witnessed Eyes glistened, Still. Daughters and daughters and daughters with…

I. Sailing on the Winds of Change

My mother didn’t have apron strings for me to hold onto, She had a noose firmly fitted around my neck. I spent my life waiting for the chair beneath me to suddenly disappear. I played my role perfectly. I let her take all my money,…

To start at the end

Open. Widen. Rip. Tear. Twist. Push. A soul’s first first journey, at the expense of another. A mother’s gift to her babe, a gift unreturnable, unpredictable, a present to create presence. Love begets agony, at its peak — silence. Time freezes, the world is created…

Poem 7

Love that reaches beyond the heavens deeper than the trenches of the oceans No one knows the ache of that love but she who bears it She prays and hopes that all she does is right She fed them and prayed with them and sent them…