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February 4, 2010
Do Over
I want to stop and yell
“Do over”
like when we were little.
Like when we still thought
there should be
more chances to try
again
because we weren’t
ready or
they started without us and
it wasn’t
fair.
-Maureen
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January 20, 2010
First Night on Peds
The baby terrified me.
Six weeks old.
No parent rooming in.
How to take vitals without
waking her and what to do if I did.
How much to feed her.
When to burp.
I obsessed on her
impending arousal
until Teddy coded.
I ran with the cart.
Sprinted twelve flights of stairs to the blood bank.
Hovered in his doorway
anxious to prove my worth.
Until, down the dimly lit hall
I heard the baby cry
and drifted toward the sound.
Plucked suddenly
from bags of blood, intubation trays
respiratory therapists and residents
to hold this tiny child.
Rocking her as she sucked greedily, unaware.
Clutching my pinky
in the dark.
-Maureen
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January 10, 2010
I wanted to be the kind of mother
who puts fresh baked cookies and handwritten notes
in your lunchbox.
But it just didn’t fit.
Most days I am not sure
what category of mother I actually turned out to be.
But yesterday when you made
the great leap out of girlhood
I saw that we are part of something
bigger than ourselves.
I can reach behind me
for the arms of women I will never know
whose blood runs through me
into you, and on
into those whose hands
I strain forward now to grasp
but can only begin to see
through the light in your eyes.
-Maureen
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January 2, 2010
Chick Poem
I throw like a girl
because that’s what I am,
and I cry at Hallmark commercials
and during ABC After School Specials.
I prefer to read Edith Wharton
and eat chocolate
and watch Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy
pine away for one another in the
six hour version of Pride and Prejudice
rather than, say, go winter backpacking
up a mountain with no plumbing
for the weekend.
I am hardy in ways you may never choose to understand.
I like to giggle and gossip
and get dressed up for parties while
drinking wine and playing music because
that is part of the fun.
And I do throw like a girl but
don’t ever tell me that I do
because that is not an insult.
-Maureen
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December 22, 2009
Christmas
By process of elimination
my father and I would be left to decorate the tree.
Holidays were like that.
My sister off on her bike,
our mother locked in their bedroom
choking on her unique despair.
The two of us smiled and persisted.
My father untangling strings of bulky lights,
both of us praying they would work.
Absurdly anxious over the placement of each ornament
-were the branches thick enough?
-were we using the proper-sized hooks?
Silver reflecting threads of tinsel hung like spaghetti
one strand at a time.
We learned to tread so lightly
that we were never quite sure what had become of our feet.
Terrified to assume our work beautiful
and find out we were wrong.
-Maureen
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December 12, 2009
December 2003
The wind this winter seems
bent on declaration of power,
rarely stopping for a moment to
catch its own breath.
Beating the trees into
gnarled submission,
chopping the sea into frothing slices
that all around us roll with rage.
Stranding us to ourselves
on this island we have chosen
to call home.
-Maureen
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December 4, 2009
Full moon December
Like it never happened
summer dangled itself before us
then disappeared
leaving behind a flash of
moistened skin stinging with salt
and sand between our toes.
We blinked
and the sky turned once more to long stretches of gray marble
filled with ice and nostalgia,
the days ending in darkness
before we are anywhere near through.
But tonight
by the blue light of a full moon
bathing the fields covered with snow
it felt enchanted.
It felt like hope.
-Maureen
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November24, 2009
Time
When we moved into the house on Farley Ave,
I didn’t think we’d be there
by the time you started school.
It seemed so far away.
I put you down for a nap
and here we are,
you with one foot already tapping the doorframe,
ready to slam it tight behind you.
It is true.
You will never live with us full time again.
And even as I anticipate what might lie ahead
for us both,
I search behind me in the mist for what
I am sure must be an alternate universe,
you, still bald and toothless,
your head of whispy blonde curls
damp to my lips
as I reach in to claim you
from your nap.
-Maureen
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November15, 2009
Fixing The Muffler
You are lying on your side in the driveway
half under the van
dirt and leaves clinging to
the warmth of your shoulder
and I think:
It could be so easy to still love you,
to bend down and brush the dirt off
hugging your arm to my heart
holding on for all that slips
without my permission
away so quickly.
But your broad shoulder is like
the gentle kindness you cleaved unto me,
an illusion I can no longer trace on your face
with my finger.
And when you look up smiling I know
there is nothing there in particular
meant for me.
-Maureen
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November 6, 2009
Hearing Aids
“I hear something”
she crowed
rushing to the window,
studying the TV,
amazed when we
whispered in her ear.
She had not known
what parts of her self
were missing
until she heard them
say her name.
-Maureen
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October 29, 2009
Morning Traffic
Andrea was still doing postmortem care
when I left,
refusing all offers of help,
insisting on completing this task alone.
I pushed through the rush-hour mayhem
toward my bed,
concentrated
to keep my mind on the road.
But I kept seeing
that small body, swollen belly
and her mother, unafraid to hold her
willing to let go.
I clutched the steering wheel
berated these
hurried drivers leaning on horns
cutting one another off.
“What can this matter,”
I flung the words into
the empty air of my car.
“Can’t you see?”
A baby is dead.
How ever can the world
still be turning?
-Maureen
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October 21, 2009
Forty Something
Is this then, what motherhood
becomes?
From children calling: Mommy, look,
competing for my smiles,
to chasing teenagers
hoping they’ll gift me with one of theirs.
I am useful.
My arsenal a checkbook, a car.
Tolerated:
Take out the trash.
Pick up your clothes.
I still recall trying to pry
small sticky fingers from my neck.
The wish to once more know
where I begin and end.
-Maureen
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October 14, 2009
Gardener
Somewhere in my 4th decade
I was shocked to realize
I could coax life from the ground,
cause it to bloom.
Startled more with the resulting
world of birds and bugs,
spiders and beasts
that opened with the flowers
even as I watched.
By 25 I’d thought I knew
everything about my self
I needed to know.
-Maureen
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October 6, 2009
Firsts
There are pages of them
in your baby books.
Ice cream, love, first pet, bicycle, best friend.
I remember every detail of
the first time I held you in my arms.
The color of your jaundiced skin,
the ripe redness of your tiny puckering mouth.
I do not know the last time
I read you a book or
soothed away a bad dream.
When last did I pick you up?
Were you crying?
Were you very heavy, and did I
laugh, saying, “I won’t be doing this much longer.”
I want to think I won’t be here
for most of your lasts.
but they are happening now.
Every day I lose another, caught up
still
in celebrating the sweetness
of what is new.
-Maureen
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September 26, 2009
Connection
It is amazing to me
how one so small
can so correctly pick up my moods,
my emotions, indeed,
my very facial expressions.
I marvel when, on sleepless nights,
I hear him moaning as he too,
tosses and turns.
And I struggle harder to sleep
so this little one may rest as well.
I wonder with awe
at this invisible bond
stronger than any umbilical connection
severed long ago.
-Maureen
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September 16, 2009
First Gray Hair
At my age it was
inevitable.
Gray hairs a common
discovery
though I had yet to find
my own.
I should
have been relieved I suppose,
that it was not on my head
waving out “yoo-hoo,”
to all those passing by.
Instead I remembered how
at twelve
I faithfully took
a scissor
to my first pubic hairs, certain
the assault
could be stayed.
-Maureen
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September 6, 2009
A Game
It feels like a game.
The kind with
a winner and a
loser.
The kind where teams
are picked one by one
until only the nerds
are left.
The kind where the crowd
turns on the players and
the players turn on
each other.
I always preferred to sit
on the steps
with a book
claiming I would referee.
-Maureen
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August 22, 2009
Milky Way Galaxy
I was in Vermont the first time
I saw it.
The sky so black,
no neon signs or cars
to buffer the light.
On a hill by a brook
there was a bonfire.
We lit a torch and walked through a graveyard
three hundred years old,
enchanted with the tombstones, the darkness,
each other.
My parents were city people, yet
every summer they drove long hours
to bring us the mountains.
Poconos, Catskills, Adirondacks.
This is nature, they said. Appreciate it.
But they never said
Look up there above you.
You are spinning in those stars.
They meant well, really.
But they did not know how to look.
-Maureen
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August 15, 2009
I Bruise Too Easily
Like the flesh of a ripened banana.
The dog thumps into my calf,
I bang my thigh on the bed frame,
and purple stains seep under my skin
spreading from brown to yellow
before they finally fade away.
“What’s your problem,” people say.
And it’s true, sometimes I appear battered
when really, it’s just
my hand slapping the table,
my shin hitting the step, or
the vacant look in your eyes when
they pass quickly over my face,
as I catch myself from falling.
-Maureen
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August 9, 2009
Island Roads
The driving is different here.
Drivers see
the other people in the cars.
They wave, honk,
slow down to pow wow
in the middle of the road
like fighter jets
re-fueling in mid-air.
I drive as I was socialized,
bred for indifferent city crowds.
I envy them here,
their confidence in their personal space,
their ability to see from all sides
and not lose sight of
where they are.
-Maureen
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August 2, 2009
Reflections On A Summer
Real Life begins tomorrow.
Dark dreadful awakenings
that feign emptiness and
the hollow resonance
of children
pored from my sight.
Blank pages that
threaten to ridicule
my every choice.
Gone is this clandestine summer,
we, its not unwilling captives
left peering over one shoulder
at the sight of ourselves
tossed so alarmingly
at one another,
nostalgically relieved
to have survived
at all.
-Maureen
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July 23, 2009
1967
Christmas vacation.
Mother and I take down
the old calendar.
Every year Aunt Kay sends
a clean new one
with our presents.
Mother discourages my clutter
when I want to keep it.
“I’ll save it,” I insist.
“for when 1967 comes again.”
She pauses.
Explains the finite passing
of the years.
But my head barely scales
the doorknob.
And the information weighs on me
like a stone.
-Maureen
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July 15, 2009
The Flying Horses
The clouds of cotton candy
rise in the air and mix
with fog inching in from the sea.
The horses go around
around.
The music taunts
the ferry moaning on its way.
Summer comes again
Again.
Hands grasping to hold onto
the elusive brass ring.
-Maureen
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July 9, 2009
My Oldest
You are our barometer.
Watching you
I can tell when
pressure systems are moving in
or
the bottom has dropped out.
Taking in your expression
I know what my own temperature
must be.
And catching your
involuntary wince
I am sand swept
stinging, blinded
through and through.
-Maureen
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July 1, 2009
My Daughter Going to Town
She wears layers of clashing
flowered shirts,
her purse carefully thrown
over her head and one shoulder.
Inside it I know
are plans,
concoctions large enough
to barely contain themselves
in a roll of lifesavers,
a zippered change purse,
a round pot of gloss.
She throws her chin up,
strides a half step ahead,
toes not quite thrust into sandals,
tongue intent through clenched jaw,
her cheek still round with little girl dreams.
And I, unable to stop myself,
place a hand on her head.
Startled she turns,
smiles,
and I ache at her
magnificence.
-Maureen
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June 24, 2009
High School Graduation
I could not say goodbye
the day I left you at kindergarten.
I smiled, waved, snapped photos.
but I could not speak.
The Burden of Being First.
Too much is new,
the glare it throws off
sparkling, so far reaching
it hurts everyone’s eyes.
Let me apologize now
if you must bear the weight
of my tears-
It is your day
after all.
I will smile,
wave and snap photos.
But please understand
if I cannot speak.
-Maureen
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June 16, 2009
The Longest Winter
Ike died today.
After a long loyal life
he lay down and stopped breathing.
They didn’t even need the vet.
We saw Kiga’s calf yesterday.
Long legged with a perfect white belt.
Kiga quietly warning us
not to come too close just yet.
In the barn the lambs were still wet.
Twins in one stall,
a deformed still born removed from the next.
Last night two boys died
speeding by
South Beach.
High school juniors, a week before their prom.
And I tell my daughter
the purpose of life is not determined
by its length,
even as I note
the absurdity of this blue skied day
and the cherry trees finally
in bloom.
-Maureen
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June 7, 2009
Moving
I lack the words to explain
what you have been for me
these nine years.
Instead I see our hair.
Long short permed thinning.
I see our bodies.
Too thin not thin enough
bulging with babies
dripping with milk.
I see your eyes.
Laughing careful filled needing.
But always looking
straight into mine.
And I see the path we’ve woven
from your backyard across
the street to my own.
A walkway through the grass
through the blacktop street.
Grooves worn visible
to anyone who might see.
How long it took
to etch out of this
suburban wilderness
and how much longer
do you suppose
before it’s gone
without a trace.
-Maureen
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May 31, 2009
The Boots
When you were not quite three
we paid too much money
for a pair of red and white checkered
boots, rationalizing they would
see you through two winters
at least.
But instead of protection from
cold feet and puddles
they became portals that,
when you slid your small feet inside,
transported you to a place where
you could be
Batman with a cape,
a firefighter with a hose.
There were no superheroes too elusive
to wear the checkered snow boots.
For weeks I lay on the couch on command
so you, Prince Phillip with your plastic sword,
could fight the evil dragon
and kiss your Sleeping Beauty
back to life.
-Maureen
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May 24, 2009
We Danced
We danced,
The Age of Aquarius blasting louder
than she would generally tolerate.
In our nightgowns
we danced
on the porch by the front door,
our usual stage.
And then she was there
beside us moving.
“Let the sun shine in,”
delighted with our reaction,
delighted with herself.
Her eyes so blue,
younger than we are today,
dancing.
“Oh, let it shine,”
and our chins fell open
in wonder.
-Maureen
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May 17, 2009
Family Reunion
She stood at the sink,
the charms on her bracelet clinked soothingly
against the metal.
Water spilling over hands
I knew to be soft and warm
like cashmere folded against my cheek.
Outside in the next room
cousins shrieked and ran
uncles aunts loudly interrupting.
But my grandmother’s voice
crooned smoothly like velvet.
“Always wash fresh mushrooms
with flour, Maureen,”
she instructed.
“It gets all the dirt off them.”
She pronounced my name the way
it was meant to be said.
The way no one ever has again.
-Maureen
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May 9, 2009
Firstborn
I held you in my arms that night and whispered
into your tiny ear
still smeared white and bloody.
But it was all lies.
I never told you how hateful I would be,
how you would come to fear
certain looks on my face.
Never warned you there would be times
I would resent your consuming presence
in my life.
That no matter how much I would try to
love you unconditionally
there are times I’m not sure I can.
I didn’t know.
I would have warned you
run, hide, go find some
nice, mellow
easily pleased woman
who likes to cook and
put up wallpaper.
I’m so sorry
I didn’t know.
-Maureen
