My Mother Says Goodby To The House
to rooms she wanted to fix up before she died, goodby to the blue sofa a cat peed on in 1944 or 45 and Clorox bleached. It was covered but never re- covered, a word that’s charged, as most words these last 4 weeks are. My mother unhooks the cable. She leaves bags from Brooks full of kleenex, a closet of Dove soap, on her bed unopened presents.
In My Mother’s Bedroom
with the lights off in the living room the shades moving from the first breeze in eleven days and the door shut so the cat doesn’t eat needles or ash “here take this mirror” my mother says pulling open a drawer before the huge mirror I’d sit before studying my legs studying the first swell of nipples I always stand here with my skirt raised when I come home my mother combing my hair as I sat on the same hassock before its top was replaced with blue cloth my hair just as curly as hers then years before I would have a hair like the one she doesn’t want on the same place on my chin as hers is
