Three Poems
The Bad Mother
(for g.a.k.)
I hate you, I scream
I wish you had never been born.
And too often, I do.
Dear child,
there are minutes, hours, even whole days, sometimes,
when I long for the calm stillness
of life without you,
for sane and peaceful conversations with your father,
for talk of books, politics, people—anything but
your fear of blankets, your obsession with germs, your anxiety about math.
You try yoga on the red mat:
downward dog with your butt in the air.
Your therapist says this will change your brain chemistry,
teach you to relax, but
you worry that your legs aren’t straight,
your breathing not deep enough.
Sometimes we are on the cusp of normalcy.
I try, with nutrition and nurturing, to push you over,
to move you, like Dorothy,
from your black-and-white existence to a world of color,
to plant you, like the daisies you love,
in a bright garden of now.
But too often you don’t see the world around you,
either the socks you dropped on the stairs
or the orange brilliancy of the sun sinking beneath the hill,
and too often you sit like a boulder on my heart,
your anxiety breaking the sternum and crushing
the tender pink muscle beneath.
Dear child,
you thank me for every meal I prepare,
for every trinket I buy for you.
Every time I brush your unruly hair
or your metal-covered teeth, and every time
I answer a question about a book you don’t understand,
you are grateful. And
unlike so many teenagers,
you have never once said I hate you.
Your therapist says there are no bad kids,
only kids who make bad choices.
I wonder if the same
is true for mothers.
She’s In Control
she lets them sit
like rising bread dough
these bits of image
and sound
these fragments
sometimes
she waits for months
checking on them
now and then
the way she would
check on the baby
who’s napping
just to be sure
she makes
adjustments
in music
she tunes them
like a clarinet
pulling out
or pushing in
as necessary
until
at last
they reach
perfection
unlike her children
whose lives
resist
her prodding
and shaping
and who
may never rise
to the occasion
her children
who might
be happy
just to sit
if
she were
inclined
to let
them
Go Away
take this
skewed life
and straighten
it
or
rend it
start over
bury this
toxic
body
and its
toxic
byproducts
someone
love them
I can’t
anymore
this heart
also poisoned
pain in
intimate
places.
—Laura Wendorff
