By Raymond Antrobus
my mother
asking how
to open a tab
on her laptop,
to email a photo,
calling to ask—
can you change
the lightbulb
at the top of the stairs?
my mother
spending hours
helping me find
a doctor’s form,
a hearing aid battery,
anything
misplaced, my mother
who keeps leaving
her keys in the doors
or on the walls,
who keeps saying
I might have to change
the locks, mother
of self-sufficiency,
of beads and trolleys,
of handlebars,
short-tempered
spiteful mother,
mother of resistance,
licorice and seaweed
on the table,
lonely mother,
mother needs-no-man,
mother deserves my cooking,
deserves a long sleep,
a cuppa tea, a garden
of lavender mothers,
all her heads up,
mother’s tooth
falls out, mother
dyes her hair,
don’t say graying
say sea salt
and cream, remedy,
immortal mother.
Source: Poetry (February 2019)
Poet Bio
More Poems about Living
Meanwhile
From the Sky
When I die,
bury me in the sky—
no one is fighting over it.
Children are playing soccer
with empty bomb shells
(from the sky I can see them).
A grandmother is baking
her Eid makroota and mamoul
(from the sky I can taste them).
Teens are writing love...
More Poems about Love
As Winds That Blow Against A Star
After Love
There is no magic any more,
We meet as other people do,
You work no miracle for me
Nor I for you.
You were the wind and I the sea—
There is no splendor any more,
I...
More Poems about Relationships
Meanwhile
Water of the womb
It is winter in Anchorage, and I am only as tall as the shoveled snowbanks in the parking lot of the pink apartments. I am old enough to have chores but young enough not to fully understand frostbite. It is...