Mother’s Day
My mother did not live to be a hundred
like the old nuns in the Sacred Heart
convent, sheltered from life. She was
fifty-five when she died. I was the baby
of the family. It does not seem so long
ago to me that I snuck into bed
between her and my father, no greater
antidote to fear than that. Life is not
a slow read. We speed through it,
pages flipping. After her funeral,
I hated the smell of flowers.
She used to make my brother take me
to the movies to help me breathe
in the cool dark of the air-conditioned Elsmere.
Now all I want to do is watch movies in bed,
central air humming through the house. I cried
so much when she died that it still embarrasses me.
She used to visit me in my dreams,
even sometimes speaking to me from
the beyond. But I haven’t seen
or heard from her in years.
My own heart thumps
wildly in my chest sometimes,
when I think about the story ending.
My arms are swollen from allergy shots,
my son examining bumblebees
in the backyard. I inhale as deeply as I can.
Flowers don’t bother me anymore.
[This poem was written, I think, ca. 2000. The photo shows me, checking the time, and my best friend, Dennis O'Toole, sitting on my mother's lap in 1948 in Rockaway Beach, NYC. My mother was Bridie Flynn from Co. Galway, Ireland.]