Then and Then

 

Where were you the first time you looked at me

and saw yourself in my face?

You told me you were living your life over through me.

You told me I would be the death of you

 

I stand beside your bed waiting, waiting

for you to draw your last breath

Knowing I have come home too late.  I am dead to you already.

 

We share consecrated Sundays

fishing in our secret spot near Toppins pier

No one found us there. No one looked.

I baited hooks. You smoked.

 

I force myself to bring my face to your mouth and inhale your breath

I watch you sleep. Your bloated flesh is the color of creek scum

Finally I speak the unsaid words.

I’m home, Mama. I’m sorry.

 

I wanted more from life than croakers and soft shelled crabs

I wasn’t your shadow or your savior

Mama, I ran away from you long before I left

 

What more can I say about Frankie Mae Foreman?

Was I the death of her?

She crawled into that bottle when I ran away and there she stayed

until her dying day

Reviews

[Angela H.]

There is such cleanness in the way you tell this painful story. I like it very much. I respect your self-assurance in the telling...no self-aggrandizing or overwrought language, and yet a specificity that denotes character and place, and an underbelly of emotional entanglement. As the mother of a teenage daughter in the throes of individuation, I feel it right to my toes.

[Emily B]

there is something about mothers and daughters that always seems wrong . . . I hope that things will be different with my daughters but somehow I always end up feeling inadequate . . . one day they will write words about me trying to get over what I've done to them.