My Mother's Other Life
Before we would go out
to dinner or a movie,
after a long day of who-
knows-what, cleaning,
certainly, straightening
the confusion
from four sloppy sons
and a husband who had
his own private headaches,
my mother would stop
in the middle of our rushing
around and hollering
about who gets to ride
in the front seat and say,
calmly, just a second,
sitting down on a black-cushioned,
straight-backed chair placed
beside the door solely
for that purpose: to rest
briefly, to deeply breathe in
and out until her heart
slowed down and her face
calmed. No matter how much
in a hurry we were, through
the yellings of my father's voice
and my brother's hastings
and my own, the motor running.
Who knows what settled her?
Perhaps she returned
for that brief spell
to when she was a girl
alone on the gigantic porch
of the rented yellow duplex
on 153 Street off Kinsman,
near the small shul, reading
Gone With the Wind cover
to cover, her mother
studying for her citizenship,
her father's horse and buggy
clopping down the cobbled
street with its cargo
of fruit and vegetables.
She was where we weren't,
her name her own, her other life.
Slowly she'd look up and slowly
she'd rise in the sudden
silence, ours, to face the world
and us once again.
Structure
48 lines · 16 stanzas