Mothers


Back from work and I feel like there's a razor blade stuck in my throat. Strep is going around the center. Shaping up to be a wonderful Mother's Day weekend. The place I wanted to make reservations for closes at three and once again I forgot to call before then. It will be my sister, my friends the Willnauers and their son Mark, and the kids and I, for brunch. Weezer jr. wants to apologize graveside to my mother for the fight we three had on the mother's day before Vi (mom) died. This is because jr. keeps waking up at three a.m. and she is sure it is my dead mother haunting her. I said, "Weezer, do you really think our mother would deprive you of sleep?" She said, "Yes I do. Don't you remember her?" While our mother might hang around to make an angry point, I don't think she would repeatedly distrupt our sleep, jeapordizing our health. She could cut you to ribbons with her tongue, but was always worried about our health. I thought this was unique mother behaviour until I saw the Hal Hartley movie, "Trust." The heroine's mother in that movie (one of my all time favorite movies) could have been based entirely on my mother...may she rest in peace!

Here's a "mother" poem I wrote for Kate.

For Kate on her Sixth Birthday

Small hand sticky with green icing
And brilliant with magenta marker.
Swift hand balled up to pound the brother
Who tossed the rabbit off the pink bed.
Lawless hand that draws mermaids on the walls
And ballpoint makeup on storybook girls.
Give and take hand that once clutched my breast,
And later returned my love, pat for pat,
In a toddler past.
This is the hand I want
Pressed to my forehead when I’m old
Enough to be dying, old enough
To let go of all the hands I’ve known,
Even yours which have been cupped
Around my heart since the morning
The sweet weight of your newborn skull
Eased back into the cushion of my waiting palm.

MJ Tenerelli