Mother’s Day
At seventy-four, she can’t have many left,
so once again the card, the rose, the smiling
complicity in our collective fiction. She bares
her perfect teeth in my father’s direction,
some distance away. Silently, she reproaches
this occasion, too. What I remember
are sounds: the rustle of taffeta, as she zipped
and buttoned, careful not to stain the satin
with tears and snot. She did her best,
she said, to dress me despite her shame
that I was hers. I hid beneath my First
Communion veil, unaware of practicing
for a morning thirteen years later,
when I would beg a cloud of bridal tulle
to cover as much as possible.
My shelves and piano are empty of us both.
Instead, I collect Italian porcelain flowers
which, now and then, I inspect for cracks.
When she dies, I will display with my poinsettia
that picture of a happy, handsome couple
beneath a long-ago Christmas tree. I’ll say
those were my parents, and leave my guests
to admire the bisque perfection of her skin
displayed next to a brittle, silent flower
that will not yield to my caress.
