on reading the journal of my alcoholic mother
I don’t even like
it, the taste of it
I only like what it
does to me--
Mother,
I know
you have fallen from the tree
like an
overripe fruit
into
terrible forgetting,
but Mother,
tell me
about being forced to pick cotton with the boys,
about
fingers that bled regular as menses;
about
having to appease a gruff Papa.
Mother,
tell me
about running from the switch
and all
your own mother’s angers
you
brought into your mother-blood;
Mother,
tell me
about smiling into the glass
with
lips frozen in your Sybil smile,
and the
men you needed to please.
Mother,
why can't
you speak to me
of your
rebellions?
of
winning?
Your words read like a watery screen
shielding truths you could not write
--the
back of the tapestry
that
makes the front possible--
a
palimpsest.
Cordelia
M. Hanemann
Cordelia Hanemann is currently a
practicing writer and artist in Raleigh, NC. A retired professor of
English at Campbell University, she has published in numerous journals
including Atlanta Review, Connecticut River Review, Southwestern
Review, and Laurel Review; anthologies, The Poet
Magazine's new anthology, Friends and Friendship, Heron
Clan and Kakalak and in her own chapbook, Through
a Glass Darkly. Her poem, "photo-op" was a finalist in
the Poems of Resistance competition at Sable Press and her
poem "Cezanne's Apples" was nominated for a Pushcart. Recently the
featured poet for Negative Capability Press and The Alexandria
Quarterly, she is now working on a first novel, about her roots in
Cajun Louisiana.
Such a daring and lucious poem
ReplyDeleteLuscious
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your writing , it evoked deep emotion
ReplyDelete