This is my mother. Dark hair set in finger waves,
long strand of pearls over her white lace
collar. She’s eighteen, sits at an angle
not looking at the lens, straight-lipped. A mother
in focus. I stare at her photo, reel in stories
older siblings shared—dances at the Grange Hall
Saturday nights, Sunday picnics, home-made ham
salad sandwiches, her oatmeal-raisin cookies too
big to eat. A home with a place for everything
and everything in its place, children’s outfits
starched and pressed, people over for pot roast
dinners, card games. All before me.
Good years before she will bathe naked
in the Kishaukee. Young boys skinny-dipping will
yell across the river, You belong in the nut house,
she will say angels told her to.
And before she will carry cayenne pepper instead
of her pocketbook downtown, certain dogs
will attack. Before she will sweep the grass
in the front yard for hours, take out her left breast,
scratch some itch, forget to put the distended
pendulum back until someone drives by,
hollers, Hey, crazy lady, put your tit back
in your dress. There’s a single ringlet
in the middle of her forehead. I touch it, tell her
I want to crop her life, postpartum depression,
full-blown insanity, a husband who refuses to do
anything. This is my mother on her wedding day.
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