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Today must have been beautiful. She,
never having believed her life could be full
looks at my face, and hands, and eyes
believing in expectations before the first breath
can be made. Tomorrow, I leave a letter
in a bright pink envelope, like flashing lights
to signal caution, for my mother. Then I drive
away
and cannot see the effects of what I have done
to disrupt the ease of life in our blue house.
We have lived each day like strangers, forgetting
she is my mother and I am her daughter, and each
piece of me is her. The wide hips we both sink
into, the medium-sized breasts we have tried to hide,
beautiful parts of a woman I wish I did not have,
and she wishes
she did not give to me. We sit under shallow trees
drinking wine and eating focaccia bread with olives.
We do not talk because we cannot. I can hardly
look at her, her empty gaze gnawing at my stability,
so I study the creases in my hands, interesting
and safe. She asked me if I could remember
the good times. Growing up in rain and gray
doesn’t lend oneself to remembering good times.
But for me I think
of the time when she left me in the car
while she went into the restaurant not looking back,
and at her lunch. The plan was to spend the day
together, but I don’t see the possibility or
the time when she got angry, like the hot water heater does
when the water inside is hot enough, and yelled at me
for wearing the clothes I wore, for wearing the face I wore,
called me cloudy, and decided she wouldn’t
give me definitions anymore, just handed me
the dictionary. Someone said every seven years
your insides, the composition of cells, changes
meaning who I was when I was thirteen, and who she was
when she was forty-five, are not who we are
now. My mind becomes clouded when I try to imagine
at my birthday party how I cried
when they sang Happy Birthday to me, and how
when I tried to hide under the dining room table
my mother picked me up, into her arms
and loved me. I’m sure it was raining
that day. I want it to rain now, because
I am dehydrated in this desert of mountains,
and even if it brings back tears, at least
there will be salt from the ocean that rains on
the blue house, where my mother is sitting
and singing, Rock-A-Bye Baby, and rubbing
a sore leg, and saying, “Goodnight, sweetie,
I’m going up” so that I will know where she is.