The Death of My Mother was the most forceful
Event of My Life
I believe I have recovered
& will not write many more
Dead Mother Poems.
I am planning My New Floor Covering instead
My Husband is up from His Nap
& We’re eating stuffed chicken
The Hawk West Desk Window 9:20am
Those long black hours
twenty years ago waiting
for My Mother to die
have been replaced
by coffee in The Morning
with My Second Husband
& a carpenter’s quote
for His Library downstairs
I am casting off My Mother’s Houses
I just opened the cupboard door under the sink
here at The Hawk
to dry My Hands on a non-existent towel there
thinking I was in The Shakespeare House
momentarily
but I’m not — that House
went in September 2011
& I am left with The Island
ready to go at the full asking price
by This Friday —
how many dish towel memories
do I have there?
The Hawk Portico 2:53pm
I Open Doors
I Close Doors
I Open Another Door
I Close That Door
I Am An Owner of Cats
composed by WHB
Take five 3 year-olds
and put Them through
a series of “Developmental Screening Tests”
and what have You got?
“Today’s expert opinion
is next week’s laughable theory”
(quote from Dr W Hunter Blair
November 14th 2012)
The Hawk Kitchen 6:30pm
I have My Big Black Cat Astro
Who could be targeted by Halloween pranksters
as warned by a cat-loving Secretary
Astro cannot be let out
until Cover of Darkness
and this at My Husband’s insistence
— He thinks Astro is safe —
if anything happened to My Astro
I would be inconsolably bereft
Joanna Gilman Hyde 