The Tomato-coloured Couch 6:43 pm
Should I feel guilty eating
a steak sandwich in front
of My Nearly Vegan Daughter
Who exploded into tears
when I told Her
She didn’t have to go to University
to learn Sociology?
The Hawk Family Room 7:30pm
“You can write poetry out of anything”
I glibly stated to a friend
who had taken Me out for a late birthday lunch —
Well Watch This — You Can’t–
take watching digital rain on Family Room window screens
& link it, somehow,
to My Hallmark Daughter
not giving Me a birthday card
then surprising Me with one
for Mother’s Day
The Hawk West Desk Window 10:11pm
When My Husband Holds My Left Forearm
I Am In The Child’s Embrace
I Must Grow Up Into My Self
& Be The Woman Now
Without My Mother, The Single Parent
for I had no father
The Hawk West Desk Window 12:13pm
I saw An Angel Once
— while My Mother lay dying —
She Flew from Left to Right
amidst The Bows of A Lofty Pine
I told My Mother Where To Look
for Belly, Arms, Sleeves
She turned Her Head, My Mother did
so She Never Leaves
The Tomato-coloured Couch NOON
I have One Child still
at home
I fold Her Laundry
Make Her Bed
because
I Love Her
The Hawk Kitchen 9:37am
I floated down The Hudson River
on a cloud of pink
baby pink
but I had eyes
& could see My Parents
incestuous playmates
together at The Waterfalls
of Snedens Landing
I impregnated My Mother
& She tried to gallop on a horse
to get rid of Me
but since I stayed
She wanted Me
& stuck to Me like horse glue
The first year of human-hood
was spent in Africa
for My Father to teach Africans
how to drive tractors
& for My Mother to give dinner parties to African Dignataries
where Dr Schweitzer held Me
on His Lap
& looked at My Toes
As soon as My Mother & I came home by freighter
Howard was born
& He became My New Shadow
The Hawk Deck 10:37am
Our Mother raised us single-handedly
while Our Father, back from Africa & Divorced
toiled fruitlessly on a dairy farm
Howard & I grew into
robust teenagers
— He a musician
— I an artist
laden down
by My Mother’s Failed Love Affair
with a famous Jazz Player
Fuck This Shit —
I’m not laden down by anything:
Mother’s Old Lost Love
Her Early Death By Malignant Brain Tumour
My Shower of Unintelligible Light
on March 31st, 1993
Brother’s Dying on a Jail-house Floor
or Years of Depression
with My Daughter’s Early Childhood Memories
of Her Mother Lying In Bed
or Hospitalized for Weeks On End
That Daughter has just finished
washing Her Boyfriend’s
Black Dodge Ram 1500
& It’s Drying
in Perfect
Sun
The Hawk Portico 3:40pm
Blanketed in Eliza’s cream-coloured Horse Throw
Mrs. Blair slouches slightly in Her Red Deck Chair
within the enclosure of Her Stoop
She wears a sun hat to protect a possible cancerous spot
on Her Right Cheek
She wears Her Serengetis
because The Sun is that bright
Her Daughter Eliza, driving Her 2000 Black Lincoln LS
pulls into the front yard announcing
“Mom, You look like an idiot.”
Then for something a little more descriptive:
“You look like a moth,
or someone Who’s trying to look like a moth –”
“A Lunar Moth?”
February 22, 2013
Dear Mom:
The Time Has Come For Me
to write You a Proper Letter
as an astute friend
pointed out tonight
I never had —
nor allowed My Self —
any Time alone with You
after You died.
–
I left Your Hospital Room Immediately.
I made The Arrangements for Your Cremation
on no sleep
and when You came to visit
in the Form of A Chickadee
eyeing Your Coffin Boards
still I did not linger with You.
You landed on My Finger
and I did not speak.
I was in A Trance
broken only by The Greatest Event
ever to befall Me:
The Shower of Silver Lights
crashing down on My Head
four days after You Died.
–
I thought I was The Second Coming of Christ
and saw The Meaning of Life
that night in My Hospital Room.
The Next Day, April Fool’s Day
a chipmunk/leprechaun of a doctor
told Me I might be A Seer —
well, that was IT —
I followed That Little Man
for The Next Two Decades
and thought of Him
as My Divine Partner
until yesterday
when I flung out into The Ocean
a sculpture of Him
made out of aluminium foil
off a pizza slice.
I also threw out
The Little Balsa Wood Box
You gave Me
because I had written His initials and Mine
inside.
This was not done without days of trepidation
but I did It
and I wish You could have done something similar
to get rid of Your Little Man —
a pain You bore since I was nine.
–
So Now I Am Alone With You
and I Love You.
You were My Greatest Love–
and without You I had to foster
a replacement —
and not just a new Husband —
an entire fantastical existence
which is now
finally
concluded —
thanks to You
and to My Awareness
of How Much You Meant To Me.
–
All My Love,
Joge
The Hawk Queen Bed 9:22am
I PUSHED THE CERAMIC HEAD
I MADE
OF A DARK HAIRED LADY
HELD UP IN A DREAM
TO THE BACK SIDE OF A THIN OLD GYP-ROCK WALL
I PUSHED HER FRONTAL FEATURES FIRST
ALL THE WAY THROUGH
TO HER INTRICATE HAIR LINE
SO THAT THE PATTERN OF HER FACE
EMERGED FROM THE CRUMBLE
ON THE OTHER SIDE
WHERE MY DAUGHTER WAS STANDING
TO RECEIVE HER
INTACT
In a Barrington Passage car park
I listen to 90’s on 9
“That’s Me in The Corner
That’s Me in The Spot Light
Losing My Religion”
— I listen to 90’s on 9
to reclaim the decade
stolen by My Mother’s Brain Tumour —
is this another Dead Mother poem
or My Reclamation
of What I’m OWED?
Making up for months & months
of psychiatric hospitalizations
of years of being so depressed
I couldn’t take care of My Children
of writing a 364 page Manuscript
— The Encapsulation —
only to gleefully shred It
— every copy I possessed —
on a sunny June afternoon
fifteen years later?
Joanna Gilman Hyde 