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Photo by Gail Harvey, no reproduction without permission
Poem STEP MOTHER’S DAY, FAR AWAY
On someone else’s fortieth
You were a voice on a phone
Waiting
I would learn how you hated two things:
Waiting
And change.
Welcome to Club Human.
I had seen your sweet picture
Knew ‘all’ about you
Which means, your mother’s version of you
Easy to like, fun fury over newspapers daily--
Later, much harder to leave than you realize
But no one told you that version.
The one in which I missed you
Through broken windows and Salem outbursts.
The darkening of a name
The good bits cut out, slid sideways till
No light warmed your memory:
Mission accomplished.
But before all that childish adulthood:
I was careful to never overload you with
Hugs, admonishments, edicts.
I am guilty of hoping you'd love salad
with enough pressure.
But no. Nothing rabbit about you.
So that when the first voluntary hug came
Later than dreamt
I felt a lottery win deep down.
Soon enough I would hear under things
Your brook’s language, a bubbling self
See you for you, love you off-stage
Mess is your battle shield, it works
Sadness in the seldom-hung pictures
The relegations.
I knew that boxed-out sadness, differently.
Yours had an upside.
Quietly I imagine a someday supermarket
New York, why not, New York
You grimacing through mandatory vegetables
Irises like shutters, always
A rolling perfect lime on sloped tile floor
The timing of which seldom happens
Except in reel lives
Where all the right eyes look up at all
The right times and smile
Hello you.
Been away. So who are you?
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