My Mom is Mist Now
My mom is mist now Like the wrist spray of Arpege That used to follow her Like me In the pony gallop of sock trails Wherever she went. My mom is longing now A distant moon As luminous as the pearls That she wore on special nights When being pretty was her only fate. My mom is music now She’s Gertrude Lawrence guiding young lovers Wherever they are Bone-skinny Frank in the wee hours Fred and Eleanor as they begin the Beguine The song that arrives At the port of night When I turn and try to Hold the empty sea. My mom is in the clink of china cups now. In the messages scrawled in the secret code of cake crumbs In the murmur of a soap opera In the whistle of a kettle On the filter tip of a lip-stained cigarette In the final resting place of an ashtray. My mom is rage now As uncontrollable as she was When the shadows swallowed her whole. And my mom is sorrow now Like the moment after her mom died. She stood at the window crying And then turned to me and said in a voice much younger than