Watching Television With My Mother.
On television we watch an elephant walk into a clearing. The last of her herd. There are no more like her, moving in her aloneness.
In the afternoon you say.
I am a fool….to the open window.
I am a fool….a thousand spools of thread long.
I have to learn to cry by looking in the mirror.
My feelings hang in trees. I used to think of them as blossoms.
Let the geese go, prepare the world for memory.
I would reach down into my belly to bring you forth
If you wanted. I rock rock the tears out of you.
Farmers once worked wheat fields in long lines, with a swish of careful scythes, balanced motion with the other hands. Then a dove called out in a human voice. Along the stubbled way the world leans over.
Susan Bazett