Explore Poems: Mother's Day

Before the doctor told me
I could not leave her,
Not even for fifteen minutes,
Twice a week
I would rumble-race out of that house,
Wind-zip down the street to the el,
Jump on to 87th,
Haul-dash to the gym,
Stomp the treadmill
For forty-five minutes,
Then pull heavy arms
And...

Just to say that today
the female power is revealed
by the blue sky flapping
in the laundry
on the roof across the street.
I refer, of course,
to the quiet study and the
empty bed. The head
would be ruled by the heart today,
and by the sidewalk
drifting...

I thought a tree dying was a sign of pestilence or terror or you’d done something wrong in your life and so your tree died. But no, sometimes, like a pet, they just go. Lifespan different than a dog, how...

Between us bobs the baby, solemn in her infant wet suit.
The pool is the only place where
              screaming does not indicate terror.

The neighbor’s pansy beds—O to lie down in those beds
and doze. Greener than grass, says Sappho,
              originator of envy.

My...

For I can snore like a bullhorn
or play loud music
or sit up talking with any reasonably sober Irishman
and Fergus will only sink deeper
into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all in one flash,   
but let there be that heavy breathing
or a...

My mother—preferring the strange to the tame:
Dove-note, bone marrow, deer dung,
Frog’s belly distended with finny young,
Leaf-mold wilderness, harebell, toadstool,
Odd, small snakes roving through the leaves,
Metallic beetles rambling over stones: all
Wild and natural!—flashed out her instinctive love, and quick, she   
Picked up...

On Mother's Day it isn't smart
To give your mom a broken heart.

So here are thing you shouldn't say
To dear old mom on Mother's Day:

Don't tell her that you'll never eat
A carrot, celery, bean, or beet.

Don't tell her you think smoking's...

As I wandered on the beach
I saw the heron standing   
Sunk in the tattered wings
He wore as a hunchback’s coat.   
Shadow without a shadow,   
Hung on invisible wires   
From the top of a canvas day,   
What scissors cut him out?   
Superimposed on a poster   
Of summer by...

She came home running
       back to the mothering blackness   
       deep in the smothering blackness
white tears icicle gold plains of her face   
       She came home running

She came down creeping
       here to the black arms waiting
       now to the warm heart waiting
rime...

Of course they are empty shells, without hope of animation.
Of course they are artifacts.

Even if my sister and I should wear some,
or if we give others away,

they will always be your clothes without you,...

Archaic, his gestures
hieratic, just like Caesar or Sappho
or Mary’s Jesus or Ann’s Mary or Jane   
Austen once, or me or your mother’s you

the sudden baby surges to his feet   
and sways, head forward, chin high,   
arms akimbo, hands dangling idle,   
elbows up, as if...

I learned from my mother how to love
the living, to have plenty of vases on hand
in case you have to rush to the hospital
with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants
still stuck to the buds. I...

As from the house your mother sees
You playing round the garden trees,
So you may see, if you will look
Through the windows of this book,
Another child, far, far away,
And in another garden, play.
But do not...

Believe it or not,
the old woman said,
and I tried to picture it:
a girl,
the polished white ribs of a roast
tied to her boots with twine,
the twine coated with candle wax
so she could glide
uninterrupted
across the ice—
my mother,
skating on bones.

Granny’s come to our house,
    And ho! my lawzy-daisy!
All the childern round the place
    Is ist a-runnin’ crazy!
Fetched a cake fer little Jake,
    And fetched a pie fer Nanny,
And fetched a pear fer all...

The mornings are his,
blue and white
like the tablecloth at breakfast.   
He’s happy in the house,
a sweep of the spoon
brings the birds under his chair.   
He sings and the dishes disappear.

Or holding a crayon like a candle,   
he draws a circle.
It is his hundredth...

          ONE
From Sappho to myself, consider the fate of women.
How unwomanly to discuss it! Like a noose or an albatross necktie   
The clinical sobriquet hangs us: codpiece coveters.
Never mind these epithets; I myself have collected some honeys.   
Juvenal set us apart in...

I was your rebellious son,
do you remember? Sometimes
I wonder if you do remember,
so complete has your forgiveness been.

So complete has your forgiveness been
I wonder sometimes if it did not
precede my wrong, and I erred,
safe found, within your love,

prepared ahead of...

Searching for pillowcases trimmed   
with lace that my mother-in-law
once made, I open the chest of drawers   
upstairs to find that mice
have chewed the blue and white linen   
dishtowels to make their nest,
and bedded themselves
among embroidered dresser scarves   
and fingertip towels.

Tufts of fibers, droppings like...

I.

Daily, the kindergarteners   
passed my porch. I loved   
their likeness and variety,   
their selves in line like little   
monosyllables, but huggable—
I wasn't meant

to grab them, ever,
up into actual besmooches or down   
into grubbiest tumbles, my lot was not   
to have them, in the flesh.
Was it better...