Page 7 - Contrast1997
P. 7
Beloved Mother puzzled
you took me home
agony to my blanket
like a severed limb and Sesame Street
washed in in our parlor
with terror with the brown shag rug
I had not before known like the fur
or of a disrobed
been able polyester bear
to recall
as she reached her chalk-stained where we would sit
hand out to me twelve years later
as you upon my
readied to release mine almost death
to this surrogate
and inattentive and cry together
mother-for-the-afternoon again
in a torrent of
colored blocks it would not
tear-stained faces could not
and salted crackers be the last
time
I would not
could not my beloved mother.
let you go
Janet Keymetian
5
