MOTHERHOOD

How powerful I felt
when you looked up to me
for life, for meaning, for encouragement!

I dreamed your growth,
straight and tall,
invincible
arrows in my quiver,
conquering all
while I cheered from afar
congratulating myself
for the miracle.

Now the work is over
and I weep, redundant,
a shadow ghosting through
the margins of your lives.

When it's all over,
I'll lie meekly on my back
looking up to you.

                         (Oct. 2012)

Prodigal Daughter

Perturbs you, does it, Daddy dearest,

that I spread my thighs for strangers

to earn my daily bread 

and crème de menthe?

"Why?" you ask. I don't know. 

But my heart gloats to see you squirm.

 

"I gave you everything!" 

you bluster self-importantly. 

Indeed you did. 

Your thoughts, your plans, your dreams. 

Remember that tax-deductible soirée of yours, 

complete with rented flesh? 

You got so drunk you would have taken me 

(I saw it in your eyes), 

but there are some things even I won't do.

If I married into your caviar crowd, 

would that be any different?

Roll over, smile on demand, 

battered, bartered -- for what?

It's killing my mother, you tell me. 

She's too far gone to phone? 

Her bleeding heart's reserved 

for painted ducks and baby seals! 

"Fastest draw in the West with a cheque book," 

you smile indulgently, 

"but I can afford it." 

Affirmation on demand -- that's her cocaine.

Forty short days, you plead. 

Forty days in a mink-lined cell 

to make me fit for your table; 

clinking your stemware, wearing your dresses, 

high on designer drugs prescribed by your shrink-- 

courtesy of high-yield Third World blood and tears.

In the empty morning hours I waver, 

muster a nostalgic tear or two 

before the downers kick in. 

When I awake, I paint my face 

and go to war once more.

I sell diversion 

from the dreary demons of inconsequence. 

You buy and sell the lives of voiceless children. 

Keep your forgiveness. 

You need it more than I do.

Dr. Mom

I am the very model of a medical practitioner,
And there are even those who claim that I am a magicioner.
Some doctors like to give you tests and some will throw the book at you,
But I know what your problem is the moment that I look at you!

My annotated pharmacopia is always by my side.
I know a lot of remedies that you have never even tried!
There's not a system in your carcass that is not old news to me:
Before I go to sleep at night, I read from Gray's anatomy!

Whenever you are out of sorts, I'll respond with alacrity.
In urgent situations I would even give you ECT!
In short, in pharmaceutical and surgical and herbal lore
I am the very model of the medic you are looking for.

I'll diagnose your every ill and I won't even charge a fee.
With earnest concentration I could execute brain surgery!
In mysteries of medicine there is no knowledge that I lack:
I've researched every malady, for I'm a hypochondriac!


(A Gilbert & Sullivan parody, which has been performed in public in the context of a summer camp skit, and has been published in a little book of Northern Ontario poetry.)