I remember the way your face
sticky
came into the low light of that close, hot room.
You existed.
I held you all night long, and rocked you.
Exhausted.
Until the sun came up, I touched you
counted perfect toes and
impossible, lovely fingers.
Full of wonder.
I thought:
This is what it is, to be a mother.
For the first months of your life
you cried all night
I fed you
You sucked life from me with your cries and your pull
and gave it back in smiles and light.
I walked you, coddled you, touched your face
sticky with tears.
You roared
Hiccupped.
Full of exasperation.
I thought:
This is what it is,
to be a mother.
You grew and grew
you learned to walk
we were there—
Father, Mother, family
holding out our arms, extended
to you
each begging:
come to me!
Walk to me!
Choose me!
You smiled and toddled to each of us in turn,
your love,
so indiscriminate
as much for the neighbor who
you had never met
as for me
who pulled you out of my own body
Full of jealousy and self-reproach.
I thought:
This
Is what it is, to be
a mother.
Six years old
You could read now
so big
so smart.
No longer pulling life from my body, but venturing
further and further away.
You fell
you said
And in your words, concealed, I saw:
I was tripped
by those nasty little snots next door
little ghetto brats
gang members in waiting
I remember your face
sticky
crying with tears and blood.
I wiped your cut
and held you
hiccupping
Pure protective fury.
I thought:
This is what
it is
to be a mother.
One day, tugging at my skirt with sticky fingers
asking for a treat.
The next, big enough to travel
to have adventures.
One day I lost you, at the festival.
The fair.
The family reunion.
Mixed wires, crossed signals
Is he with you?
Don’t you have him?
I thought-
You mean- he’s not—
Panic
fear, black and sticky like a suffocating tar
This time it was me who cried
and you were calm.
You were fine,
fine,
of course you were fine.
And I snapped at you the whole way home.
For making me a fearful fool.
And then, full of regret.
Still afraid with an ominous surety.
Full of dread.
I thought:
This is what
it
is, to be a mother.
You left home
when years demanded you
a man, now
with friends
more precious to you than family
you loved them more than me.
I packed a lunch for you,
sticky with dates
on which I made you promise to come home
and watched you go, my arms
stretched open to you, but you did not see
my heart crying,
Come back to me!
Walk to me!
Choose me!
The fear of you, lost
still sticky in my chest.
Full of desolation and pain,
I thought,
THIS is what it means?
To be a mother?
And then
and then
and then
and then the day
How could they?
Your head, once sticky with birth, with newness
now slick again with blood
from rocks
and not rocks
flung by some other woman’s child
placed on you by her unruly brats.
They always picked on you, those neighbor boys
a ghetto tradition
I wish I had raised you in some immaculate city
Now the wars of our fathers claim my sons.
But they have wars in the cities, too.
Where could we have run, hidden, to spare you?
Cairo would not have been far enough.
Now you stand
drenched with sweat
sticky with blood and water
and now your arms are
the ones
stretched out wide, a splayed embrace
lacking a participant.
And now you say
come to me
walk to me
choose me.
And for that they kill you
and they take you
and they put you down and cover you with the earth.
I remember the night you were born.
My face, then
My face, now
As sticky with tears as
with blood
with birth
glinting in the firelight
full of emptiness
they have buried my heart.
I’m thinking.
This is what it means.
To be your mother.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
A Family Portrait (Rated R, not appropriate for all readers!)
The sun streamed in the nursery window, dust motes dancing in the morning rays. The door swung open noiselessly and bare feet padded in from the shadows behind. “Good morning, sunshine.” The woman murmured, approaching the crib. The baby blinked, lit up, reached with tiny hands. Trembling hands lifted the delicate body, holding it suspended above the white carpet for a moment before bringing the child close.
Bethany buried her nose in Lily’s blonde baby curls, rubbing her cheek over the feather-soft, baby-scented scalp. Lily snuggled her head into her mother’s shoulder, nuzzling her collarbone while kicking happily against Beth’s abdomen. She didn’t make a noise. Bethany thought maybe she should have, should coo or giggle or shriek in the morning, should demand to be changed or fed. But this child, already so much her daughter, wanted the same things Beth did- silence. Safety. Just to be held.
A noise from the shadows beyond the door made Bethany start. Sensing the sudden rtension, Lily began to squirm and fuss. “Shh. Shhhhh.” Beth rocked and murmured, soothing.She closed her eyes against Lily’s stilling head. Turning slowly, eyes still squeezed shut, she tiptoed across the carpet, reaching for the door. She wrapped slim fingers around the glass knob-- slowly, carefully eased the door closed. The carpet under the door sighed ever so slightly, then the latch closed with a barely perceptible snick. Stepping back, Beth turned away from the closed door and opened her eyes, released her breath. Shifting Lily to her bathrobed hip, she moved to the window and moved aside the curtain. “Look, Lily!” Beth whispered against her delicate ear. “Snow!”
“No?” Lily repeated, sunshine-soft.
“Yes, snow! Isn’t it pretty?”
“Petty.” Lily agreed. She pulled back to look up into her mother’s face and smiled, flashing tiny teeth in a rare show of pure beauty. “Lily’s pretty.” Bethany smiled, ignoring the resulting pull and sting in her temple. Lily’s eyes widened with her smile, her plump, rosy face the essence of delight. “Lily petty?”
“Yes, Lily. You’re my pretty girl.”
Lily giggled, bouncing on her mother’s hip and reaching one pudgy hand towards the window, into a shaft of light.
The door opened.
“Beth.” A deep voice beckoned levelly. “Breakfast.”
“Of course, sweetheart. What would you like?”
“Bacon.” The man in the hall growled.
“Alright.” She turned back to the window, rocking Lily back and forth. She thought he might have left, staggered to the fridge for an early morning Budweiser or slumped to the couch to watch TV. “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray…” she sang softly, her breath ruffling Lily’s curls.
“Now.” The man demanded. Beth looked over her shoulder to see one large foot advancing over the threshold, into the light of the nursery. She met his intense black-brown eyes, clutching Lily as she held his gaze. Then she dropped her lids. “Of course, Ray.” She put Lily gently back into her crib.
Ray followed her into the kitchen, too close, his stale breath invading her thoughts, filling the small house with hot, rank air. She put the pan on the stovetop, dug the spatula from the barren drawer. She opened the brown fridge, shuffled beer cans to peer behind, opened drawers empty of anything but brown lettuce and green salami. “I could go to the store.” She said, a note of hope slipping into her voice. She eyed the car keys, dangling from that hook on the wall, gathering dust. Ray scowled. “Any excuse to get away from me, huh?”
“No, baby, no. I just want to make you a nice breakfast.” Her stomach growled. She imagined bacon, eggs, sizzling on the stove. Beans. Bread. Luxuries she’d been weaned of during the latest bout of Ray’s insecurity.
His scowl deepened. “You’re only thinking of yourself. You, you, you. Selfish and stupid as ever.”
“I could buy you some more beer.” She suggested. “And I could get some of those cookies for Lily… she’s cutting her back teeth, you know…”
“Oh, yes. Lily. Your precious goddamn Lily. Is that why she’s been crying so much?”
“Lily is a good baby.” Beth smiled, tracing a pattern in the dust on the counter with one slim finger.
“She hates me. Just like you hate me. And the first chance you get, you’ll take her and leave me.” Ray snatched the car keys from the hook. “Well, not today.” He shoved them deep into the pocket of his worn jeans. “Ray, I don’t want to leave you. I just want to buy some groceries. Please, don’t do this. Not today.” Beth pleaded.
“How stupid do you think I am?” Ray snarled. “Forget it, Bethany!”
“I don’t think you’re stupid, Ray-“
“Besides, you look repulsive. Your hair… your clothes… I can hardly even look at you, with that disgusting bruise on your cheek.”
Tears of frustration filling her eyes, Beth shook her head. “I don’t have a bruise on my cheek.” She didn’t see the backhand coming and couldn’t have dodged if she had. Ray smirked over her as she sprawled on the moldy, cracking linoleum. “Now you do.”
When Beth met Ray he was working in a garage, fixing cars. He was a dream come true. Tall. Good looking. Smooth. Smart. And most of all, crazy about her. He loved her intensely, fiercely, protectively. There’d never been anyone like Ray for her. He was exciting—fascinating, like the flame, and she was the entranced moth. Fluttering in the glow for a few precious moments, then alternately singed or cast into the cold. She’d married him so soon. They’d barely known each other. Her mother warned her that it was too dangerous, too stupid. She’d been so sure. “I may not know him, but I know myself.” She’d said. “And I know I’ll never be happy without him.”
He’d never lost that intensity, that attention that, when turned on you full force, made you the single most important organism in existence. He was like a spotlight, and whoever he shone on was the star. When he was happy—oh, there was nothing more beautiful than Ray when he was happy. But when he was disappointed, or hungry, or drunk, or angry…
But she couldn’t leave him.
He was her heart, her husband, her other half. The father of her child. He was so lost, and in his misguided way, he needed her so much. This was a bad patch. It would pass, as the others had. It wasn’t too different with Beth’s own father, although he’d never been so much physically violent as emotionally Siberian. There were times when Beth’s father had been as cold and far away as a Himalaya, and times when he was loving, friendly, present. All Ray needed was patience. A little time.
Beth woke up on the kitchen floor, her head pounding. Dizzy, she sat up slowly, trying to organize the pieces of the world. The TV was on, softly replaying “It’s a Wonderful Life.” In front of the glow was a short plastic tree, its albino branches glittering maliciously in the flicker of the screen. Using the cold formica countertop, Beth pulled herself to her feet, closing her eyes against the rush of nausea.
A sudden, startled cry swung out through her confusion, landed like a hook in her mind. It pulled her, staggering at first, the with increasing determination as the wail grew insistent, enraged. She stumbled down the hall, stopping in the open nursery door to see Ray’s muscled body hunched over Lily’s crib. His meaty left hand held Lily’s arm, her pudgy, reaching arm, while the fingers of his right hand delivered bruising pinches to her softy, downy skin. “Mommy’s precious, aren’t you?” He sneered in a soft, sing-song snarl. “Mommy’s perfect little baby. Think she loves you, huh? Think she loves you more than me?” His fingers twitched up to her curly head, began tugging on her hair. “Say you got my hair. Well maybe I want it back. What do you say to that, precious?” he began yanking her hair, pulling out golden strands one by one.
Beth supported herself on the wall across from the door, nausea and hunger and panic fighting for dominance in her stomach. She shook so hard the world vibrated. Her hands shook as she tried to grasp the wall, support herself, ease down the hall. Her mind reeled, heart pounding, and her cold fingers knocked against the wooden frame of their picture, the only picture in the house, the last picture taken of her, the last day she’d spent without a face full of bruises and a heart full of fear—their wedding portrait. Her dress, so white, she’d felt like some fairy of winter. Her fingers curled around the picture, lifted, brought the heavy, hand-carved frame around, in front of her. In the dim light she could just make out the territorial glow of Ray’s smile—that possessiveness she’d taken for protection, that greed she’d always mistaken for love. Her feet moved forward—moving, changing, acting, shattering a spell she could no longer stay under. The nausea and hunger and panic subsided and left behind only pure, glowing rage.
Ray heard her steps, turned with a startled jerk. His brown eyes went wide, mouth opening as the mahogany frame came down on his golden head. Wood and glass met skin and bone with a sickening, thick crunch. He swayed, wavered, hands grasping at the bars of the crib as he tottered, then succumbed to the blow, hitting the white carpet with a final thud. Lily’s wails subsided to pathetic snuffles. Beth looked down at him, her husband, and felt… nothing. Nothing but impotent rage at the things she couldn’t change. She stepped carefully over his splayed legs, lifted the whimpering baby from her crib, and took down the diaper bag where she’d hidden all the money her parents had sent her, the only money Ray hadn’t drunk. In the doorway she paused to look back at her fallen husband, shielding Lily’s face with one hand. There was a lot of blood. She went closer. She couldn’t tell if he was breathing. Bending, she put out a hand. Fished in his pocket for the car keys.
In the doorway she looked back a final time, feeling, suddenly, a wash of infinite sadness. “Merry Christmas, Ray.” And then she was gone.
Bethany buried her nose in Lily’s blonde baby curls, rubbing her cheek over the feather-soft, baby-scented scalp. Lily snuggled her head into her mother’s shoulder, nuzzling her collarbone while kicking happily against Beth’s abdomen. She didn’t make a noise. Bethany thought maybe she should have, should coo or giggle or shriek in the morning, should demand to be changed or fed. But this child, already so much her daughter, wanted the same things Beth did- silence. Safety. Just to be held.
A noise from the shadows beyond the door made Bethany start. Sensing the sudden rtension, Lily began to squirm and fuss. “Shh. Shhhhh.” Beth rocked and murmured, soothing.She closed her eyes against Lily’s stilling head. Turning slowly, eyes still squeezed shut, she tiptoed across the carpet, reaching for the door. She wrapped slim fingers around the glass knob-- slowly, carefully eased the door closed. The carpet under the door sighed ever so slightly, then the latch closed with a barely perceptible snick. Stepping back, Beth turned away from the closed door and opened her eyes, released her breath. Shifting Lily to her bathrobed hip, she moved to the window and moved aside the curtain. “Look, Lily!” Beth whispered against her delicate ear. “Snow!”
“No?” Lily repeated, sunshine-soft.
“Yes, snow! Isn’t it pretty?”
“Petty.” Lily agreed. She pulled back to look up into her mother’s face and smiled, flashing tiny teeth in a rare show of pure beauty. “Lily’s pretty.” Bethany smiled, ignoring the resulting pull and sting in her temple. Lily’s eyes widened with her smile, her plump, rosy face the essence of delight. “Lily petty?”
“Yes, Lily. You’re my pretty girl.”
Lily giggled, bouncing on her mother’s hip and reaching one pudgy hand towards the window, into a shaft of light.
The door opened.
“Beth.” A deep voice beckoned levelly. “Breakfast.”
“Of course, sweetheart. What would you like?”
“Bacon.” The man in the hall growled.
“Alright.” She turned back to the window, rocking Lily back and forth. She thought he might have left, staggered to the fridge for an early morning Budweiser or slumped to the couch to watch TV. “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray…” she sang softly, her breath ruffling Lily’s curls.
“Now.” The man demanded. Beth looked over her shoulder to see one large foot advancing over the threshold, into the light of the nursery. She met his intense black-brown eyes, clutching Lily as she held his gaze. Then she dropped her lids. “Of course, Ray.” She put Lily gently back into her crib.
Ray followed her into the kitchen, too close, his stale breath invading her thoughts, filling the small house with hot, rank air. She put the pan on the stovetop, dug the spatula from the barren drawer. She opened the brown fridge, shuffled beer cans to peer behind, opened drawers empty of anything but brown lettuce and green salami. “I could go to the store.” She said, a note of hope slipping into her voice. She eyed the car keys, dangling from that hook on the wall, gathering dust. Ray scowled. “Any excuse to get away from me, huh?”
“No, baby, no. I just want to make you a nice breakfast.” Her stomach growled. She imagined bacon, eggs, sizzling on the stove. Beans. Bread. Luxuries she’d been weaned of during the latest bout of Ray’s insecurity.
His scowl deepened. “You’re only thinking of yourself. You, you, you. Selfish and stupid as ever.”
“I could buy you some more beer.” She suggested. “And I could get some of those cookies for Lily… she’s cutting her back teeth, you know…”
“Oh, yes. Lily. Your precious goddamn Lily. Is that why she’s been crying so much?”
“Lily is a good baby.” Beth smiled, tracing a pattern in the dust on the counter with one slim finger.
“She hates me. Just like you hate me. And the first chance you get, you’ll take her and leave me.” Ray snatched the car keys from the hook. “Well, not today.” He shoved them deep into the pocket of his worn jeans. “Ray, I don’t want to leave you. I just want to buy some groceries. Please, don’t do this. Not today.” Beth pleaded.
“How stupid do you think I am?” Ray snarled. “Forget it, Bethany!”
“I don’t think you’re stupid, Ray-“
“Besides, you look repulsive. Your hair… your clothes… I can hardly even look at you, with that disgusting bruise on your cheek.”
Tears of frustration filling her eyes, Beth shook her head. “I don’t have a bruise on my cheek.” She didn’t see the backhand coming and couldn’t have dodged if she had. Ray smirked over her as she sprawled on the moldy, cracking linoleum. “Now you do.”
When Beth met Ray he was working in a garage, fixing cars. He was a dream come true. Tall. Good looking. Smooth. Smart. And most of all, crazy about her. He loved her intensely, fiercely, protectively. There’d never been anyone like Ray for her. He was exciting—fascinating, like the flame, and she was the entranced moth. Fluttering in the glow for a few precious moments, then alternately singed or cast into the cold. She’d married him so soon. They’d barely known each other. Her mother warned her that it was too dangerous, too stupid. She’d been so sure. “I may not know him, but I know myself.” She’d said. “And I know I’ll never be happy without him.”
He’d never lost that intensity, that attention that, when turned on you full force, made you the single most important organism in existence. He was like a spotlight, and whoever he shone on was the star. When he was happy—oh, there was nothing more beautiful than Ray when he was happy. But when he was disappointed, or hungry, or drunk, or angry…
But she couldn’t leave him.
He was her heart, her husband, her other half. The father of her child. He was so lost, and in his misguided way, he needed her so much. This was a bad patch. It would pass, as the others had. It wasn’t too different with Beth’s own father, although he’d never been so much physically violent as emotionally Siberian. There were times when Beth’s father had been as cold and far away as a Himalaya, and times when he was loving, friendly, present. All Ray needed was patience. A little time.
Beth woke up on the kitchen floor, her head pounding. Dizzy, she sat up slowly, trying to organize the pieces of the world. The TV was on, softly replaying “It’s a Wonderful Life.” In front of the glow was a short plastic tree, its albino branches glittering maliciously in the flicker of the screen. Using the cold formica countertop, Beth pulled herself to her feet, closing her eyes against the rush of nausea.
A sudden, startled cry swung out through her confusion, landed like a hook in her mind. It pulled her, staggering at first, the with increasing determination as the wail grew insistent, enraged. She stumbled down the hall, stopping in the open nursery door to see Ray’s muscled body hunched over Lily’s crib. His meaty left hand held Lily’s arm, her pudgy, reaching arm, while the fingers of his right hand delivered bruising pinches to her softy, downy skin. “Mommy’s precious, aren’t you?” He sneered in a soft, sing-song snarl. “Mommy’s perfect little baby. Think she loves you, huh? Think she loves you more than me?” His fingers twitched up to her curly head, began tugging on her hair. “Say you got my hair. Well maybe I want it back. What do you say to that, precious?” he began yanking her hair, pulling out golden strands one by one.
Beth supported herself on the wall across from the door, nausea and hunger and panic fighting for dominance in her stomach. She shook so hard the world vibrated. Her hands shook as she tried to grasp the wall, support herself, ease down the hall. Her mind reeled, heart pounding, and her cold fingers knocked against the wooden frame of their picture, the only picture in the house, the last picture taken of her, the last day she’d spent without a face full of bruises and a heart full of fear—their wedding portrait. Her dress, so white, she’d felt like some fairy of winter. Her fingers curled around the picture, lifted, brought the heavy, hand-carved frame around, in front of her. In the dim light she could just make out the territorial glow of Ray’s smile—that possessiveness she’d taken for protection, that greed she’d always mistaken for love. Her feet moved forward—moving, changing, acting, shattering a spell she could no longer stay under. The nausea and hunger and panic subsided and left behind only pure, glowing rage.
Ray heard her steps, turned with a startled jerk. His brown eyes went wide, mouth opening as the mahogany frame came down on his golden head. Wood and glass met skin and bone with a sickening, thick crunch. He swayed, wavered, hands grasping at the bars of the crib as he tottered, then succumbed to the blow, hitting the white carpet with a final thud. Lily’s wails subsided to pathetic snuffles. Beth looked down at him, her husband, and felt… nothing. Nothing but impotent rage at the things she couldn’t change. She stepped carefully over his splayed legs, lifted the whimpering baby from her crib, and took down the diaper bag where she’d hidden all the money her parents had sent her, the only money Ray hadn’t drunk. In the doorway she paused to look back at her fallen husband, shielding Lily’s face with one hand. There was a lot of blood. She went closer. She couldn’t tell if he was breathing. Bending, she put out a hand. Fished in his pocket for the car keys.
In the doorway she looked back a final time, feeling, suddenly, a wash of infinite sadness. “Merry Christmas, Ray.” And then she was gone.
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