Blood Will Tell

Sometimes a poem insists on being written although you’ve no idea why. This is such a poem, initially provoked by the image of two women, one older and one younger, sitting across from each other in a sidewalk cafe.

She said deciding not to love

was like swallowing a coyote

that gobbled her heart a little

at a time, not all at once. Ashes

crumbled down her linen blouse

from the American Spirit with

a pinprick of ember pausing on 

the surface directly above where

her heart once burned. 

She said you have to meet a man 

at the level of his intentions and 

he never intended to cherish me, 

so I walked away. 

I had to ask the question that made

her unavoidably unique: Do you 

regret it, the decision not to love

my father? Her eyes dropped to

brush the ash away then rose to

order more whiskey sours. 

She knew my question rhetorical 

for I am the daughter she carried 

to term as that feral vow quietly 

butchered her. 

I am the only begotten who learned 

in utero to parse the howling

silences of my mother’s life. 

I am the heir of a decision she did 

not regret, at least not all at once, 

but maybe a little at a time.   

 

 

About these ads