My Mom is Mist Now

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My mom is mist now

like the spray of Chanel

that lingered in the atmosphere of

her wrists and ankles

from morning till night

My mom is a distant moon now

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 still guiding young lovers wherever they are

bone-skinny Frank in the wee small hours 

Fred and Eleanor as they begin the Beguine

My mom is in the clink of a china cup

In the messages scrawled in the secret code of cake crumbs

In the mumble of a soap opera

In the plaintive whistle of a tea kettle 

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 her mom died

when she stood

crying  at the window

that shut out the world

and said

in a voice much younger than mine,

I’m an orphan now. 















 





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