A poem in honor of Mother's Day... →[More:]

My birth mother's been on my mind a lot lately. Guess it's the approaching Mother's Day, though she's on my mind a lot anyway. She raised me until I was nine, when I went to live with my father and his wife (I was a "love" child, so to speak). It was rough going with my birth mother, but I still miss her. Thought I'd share a poem in her honor. She died in February of '97, and my father the following September. Seems like I buy fewer and fewer holiday cards all the time. I still have my father's wife, who I also call mom; she always treated me like one of her own. She's ninety now; I fear losing her, too. I'll go up to Connecticut Sunday to see her.


SEASIDE PARK

Rounding the barren baseball and soccer fields,
steel blue Long Island Sound,
choppy in winter.

A man in a red flannel vest
fishes from rocks;
sea gulls stalk his bait bucket.

We stop at the Driftwood Lounge
for footlongs with mustard and sauerkraut,
rolled into wax paper.

My father's eyes in the rearview,
his glory-days voice raucous
as a garbage truck.

Mom and me in the backseat
like lovers on a carriage ride.
Our mandated Saturday visit.

Food mashes in her mouth,
competes with stuffy breaths;
dentures slip.

Grease stains on a paper bag,
an extra cheeseburger for her to take home.
She squeezes my hand.

Hunger comes like a cat.
Winding through your legs,
it arches its back and purrs.

She believed in spells,
finger nail clippings and strands of white hair.
Dad's second heart attack.