Friday, February 9, 2018

What my mom said

You were born into the arms of wonder
of wonder who i am without all these children
or wonder what i could have been without all this marriage
or wonder will i ever know myself 
will i ever be free from the pain of molestation
of pain i didn’t ask for but felt was my fault because i stayed still
because i stayed quiet 
because i stayed breathing in time
with a clock
at the edge of the table
at the edge of the bed
of the bed of my father’s father
pain.
pain.
pain was born inside my body before i knew how to spell it.
pain was scathed from one unhappy hand to another before i knew how to break it
pain moved from his hand to my chest and i felt it
forever
burning inside my blood 
carried inside my breasts
inside the milk
that spilled when my child needed her drink. 
i held her and promised that nothing bad—to her— would happen 
like it happened 
like it happened
like it happened to me. 

All of my life, I’ve been after the fact 
protecting the knot from exposing my darkness
from exposing the rot that i asked for, forgot
and the older i get, the older it is, and i can not grow from the place i was shot. 
I’m lower now into the grave
my father, at his age in a haze of confusion, 
i dare not release 
what i know he should have seen
but did not 
did not
did not

Now that my son has a daughter
I feel it beginning all over again
I want to reach out 
branch over state lines and shade her
from splintering crimes 
committed by lonely, broken men
I want to start over again. 
In her eyes I’m divine 
she doesn’t know
I’m broken somehow
deeper than i know how to go
deeper than i’ll ever show
i want to be a sheltering tree 
for the daughters that come
for the daughters that come
after me. 

take me home to grace 
take me!
save me a space
i fill all my pockets with sage
i found a god, call him Father
call him better, call him judgment day
call him saving place, call him heaven
call it no place for people like you—like him—
See the scars on my heart make it hard to distinguish you from him
i’m never sure
never sure
never sure 
even my own husband can only touch me sweetly some of the time
mostly it’s tin foil in tin fingers down the lining of my tummy 
but as his wife, i befriend it

the shadow of abuse
the darkening the sky
builds, sprouting seeds in the throat
a volatility, a rage, a parade of malpractice
of dark
of heavy 
of clouds that wrap around and around
they never believed us, until now
until now
until now 

In the rain, i hold my granddaughter, rocking
In the spring, we will kill what winter did not