Anyway, here is the first of two poems that were accepted. This one kills me because it is the one poem everyone seems to like, but I really wish I could let it go. I saw Derrick Brown last fall, and he was amazing. Then, I wrote this months later, not realizing I had stolen words from him! Words in a particular order! After some self mutilation as repayment, my best friend instructed me to just pull a Litany (Billy Collins reference anyone?) and throw him some credit. So, apologies to one of my favorite poets (and future husband) but this one is too well liked to throw away, even if I don't deserve the title.
Lady Warpaint
“…I watched black ropes and tears ramble down your face.
Lady war paint.” –Derrick C. Brown
I’m crisply folding the clothes she should be wearing
instead she yearns for sleep, refusing to hear my bedtime story.
The morning is the easiest time to find her mourning
the lack of a man next to her,
stirring from slumber in the dark
when she wakes him up to go to work together
because she no longer has the strength to go alone,
and she no longer has the will to put on her blue uniform.
I stutter, stating all the simple clichés I know
because daughters were not created to consciously comfort mothers,
with mascara moving down her face like lady war paint
I want to wash it off but
I’ll need the soap without the opera
So instead I silently fold her work clothes at three AM
and make my way downstairs and outside into the snow, shivering
I'm barefoot on the freshly shoveled driveway and into the warm car.
I sit in the driver’s seat, staring ahead into the windshield,
a solid white wall, the texture of sandpaper backlit with moonlight.
My eyes blur and the glass becomes a solid gray;
Even the snow is tired and quiet
but even so it will never be silent again
with the burning memory of chaos ringing in my ears
like an old bell smoking and cracking in the heat
leaving only charred loneliness and smoldering silence of morning.
I sit, wishing she would hear me when I say I’m here, telling her
not to drink his vile potions that make her want to squeeze her shape to fit
in cookie cutter hips, and I wonder why can’t she shut her ears
to the men who shut their doors.
Their cruel wording sounds
like trusted speeches of lovers and forgotten mothers.
Softly falling the clouds are raining drops frozen by sorrow
and loneliness that can’t be melted away by all my sorry’s.
So I turn the key, and instead of driving away from all the frozen fires
I avoid the damages an emotional car chase would cause
I wipe my eyes and shut off the car I had warmed for her;
After all this dramatic
Can I just go back to Irony?
Inside, I find mom rushing down the stairs, wearing her uniform
pulling her hair back she gives me a look, and takes the keys from my hand.
She rushes out the door; I guess she didn’t need my help after all.
