A Sundae Kind of Love

-


My mom was a 
clever girl
with a tortured soul
which she wore
like a winter coat
buttoned to the neck
to keep out
the marrow chilled wind 
even on the 4th of July.

Her life was 
rearranged 
by tragedy
when
on a post bath
Brooklyn night in 1931
instead of
following instructions 
to keep a big sister eye
on her forever scurrying 
baby brother
the tow-haired Harry, 
she succumbed to the 
hypnotic pull of motherhood 
and tended to her doll
with its go-to-sleep eyes
and double ruffled
ribbon tied organdy bonnet,
as Harry
in an effort to
kiss the cheek of the beckoning moon
secretly made his way to the launching pad
of the window seat
pressed his lips against the mesh of the screen
and fell
to his concrete death 
while Wayne King and His Orchestra 
played Goodnight Sweetheart
on the Philco Highboy

From that moment on
my mom believed that 
the family had secretly convened
and convicted her of murder

And yet
as life hobbled on
It didn’t stop her
From buying 
Kid gloves on 
Kings Highway
Dreaming about which
Madison High Schoolboy
would finally love her
Going to double features
Twice a week
sand dancing at the bandshell
at Coney Island
while Artie Shaw
did a duet with the tumbling tide.
She shared a sundae kind of love
at the local malt shop
Spent oodles of time
With her cousins
And uncles
And Aunts
And wrote in her pale pink diary
in the sweeping cursive
of an overeager optimist
until the day that her dad died
from a fatal dose of self loathing
leaving the family destitute
when she was barely 16
And from that moment on
the diary pages went as blank as
a stare.

And yet she soldiered on 
She moved in packs
juggled secrets
and dispensed advice
like loaves in a bread line
from the perch of a stoop
as she continued to smooth out
the wrinkles of
adolescence 
like they were just
another slip to iron.

By the time I arrived
she had married an older man
who looked like Edward G. Robinson
not the gangster version
who sold the kind of fancy gloves
on Madison Avenue
that she bought as a child
Which must have comforted her
for the finger bounty alone.

But she was visited by her murder victim
every single day
whenever she looked at me

I was as blonde
as her dead baby brother
So I was kept far away from windows
and any means of escape

Behind closed doors
beauty became the beast
disfigured by rage
exhaling Viceroys like dragon fire
ready to reach for daddy’s belt
with her claws
the second that I defied her
“Where’s my strap?” she’d bellow.

Deep down inside
she was still the good daughter
the lovely girl
drawn and quartered by shame
and unbearable loss
especially when she had to
carry her skeletal 
diabetic mother 
to the bathroom 
in her arms
after her gangrened leg was amputated
and buried in a tiny box
in the family plot
Which was the only place
that anyone in my family finally found peace
and a sundae kind of love.













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