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 Baby 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.