Mirror-Touch
Alone in the kitchen, my mother
stood motionless at the stove, staring down
at a pot of potatoes boiling over.
I was sick with measles, my room
at the end of a dark hallway,
and watched through my open door
as she turned, leaned against the oven,
and slid a hand over her bald head.
She slowly opened her robe and traced
a trail of stitches across her chest—
skin pitted and sliced—a jagged red line
disappearing beneath her armpit.
For the first time, I could see her left breast
was gone. It was just
gone.
It felt hot—
the place on my chest
where I could not stop my hand from going,
trying to soothe her, cover her up
Scar
A ruby crescent, mottled, burning,
tinsels my chest,
a slim corridor raised, my days
stitched across its surface,
a sidewalk I’ve raced down,
a crack tripped over, chasing
a dark ribbon of time.
News from Evergreen Commons
My mother is Bette Davis again,
surrounded by reporters, sipping a martini poured
from a sterling shaker beaded with sweat.
Eyes off-kilter, roguish, her smile v-shaped,
she speaks with the same clipped bon mot,
over-precise diction. You should neva say bad
things about the dead, you should only say good.
Joan Crawford is dead. Good.
In the cafeteria, she sits at a smoky table
glancing outside at her Manhattan,
the office towers lit, fur trotting beside fur.
Her mouth quivers with a yawn.
She toys with her cultured pearls, slips off
her glitter skull cap, tossing
her grey mane back, her lips dark as blood.
I love the blaze igniting around her
no one dares touch, her loneliness, grandeur,
how she laughs at me for reading Plath. You know
there’s a history of mental illness in our family.
She fingers a cucumber sandwich made
especially for her (crust off, mais oui),
then slips another Vantage
from her beaded clutch and waves.
A passing orderly, pretending to be
cold as Cartier, conjures a blue flame.
