Grasping at Straws
She stood with her iron fists grasping the edge of my bed
Her eyes staring in wonder as my doubt surfaced.
When asked; a resounding: “Nothing” clapped in my ears.
I had only just left her bed for a room of my own.
Now she was watching my every move.
I was to have a perfect posture with my books balanced on my head.
“What do you want, mother”? “Nothing”
She clung to me knowing I was only lent to her,
Once she had the identity of wife, sister, and mother, daughter and flapper.
Dancing on tables without underwear, she shared her star and her song.
Grief then became my mother’s new dress.
With the loss of her sister’s, a brother, babies, husband and son who left home.
She taught me how to sprint, looking at the world through trepidation.
She cloaked her brow with longing and complaints shadowed with anger.
School books became hers; there wouldn’t be saying no to her.
She was to tell me what she read and I hid in my Art.
As I swallowed my desires with acrobatic form; I kept smiling.
I held her head when her sickness took hold.
I became the caretaker; and a jester wanting to find a star of my own.
Wishing and dreaming; I slid into the escape of my room and slept.
I slept through my teens designing my own truth.
