16 posts tagged “mother”

The Girl Who Waits

(after Abbott Handerson Thayer's painting, Virgin Enthroned, 1891)

A mother with two children is strapped

on a cross of disturbed night

weary of midnight walks with babies

The soles of her slippers are thin

One child, the strawberry blond girl

offers her a sprig of rosemary

for remembrance, for waking up

but she is too tired to see

The daughter will wait patiently

for the mother's eyes to open

a sheet of ice cracking on the creek bed

in the early thaws of March

Lucy Simpson, revised 12/2009

432px-Virgin_Enthroned_1891_Abbott_Thayer

Her Auburn Spiral Staircase

I have waited

for birch-wood fingers

to unclasp taciturn bun

and auburn steps to fall

loose with flame-fish

swimming the dull light

of a dirty-shaded lamp

where she sits

brush clutched in hand

torturing her scalp

with one hundred strokes

till hair shines

her eyes narrow to jade slits

caught in last light

of day’s fiery end

I am left wondering

if her hair was something

that needed

to be tamed

to become the spiral staircase

to the Hagia Sophia

of her domed forehead

Lucy Simpson

Seattle

2/25/2006, revised 10/2009

Mother, Why?

Mother, why you go so fast?

because my mother never moved

She had sores on her ass

Mother why you eat that slab of bacon

like a hungry wolf?

because I've been hungry all my days

Mother why is the wind howling?

It's the banshee come to pay his respects

in the hollow time before snow

Lucy Simpson, Seattle, 2/21/2009

memory of mother

lull      lull     lullaby

your voice is a rope

rocked     rocked    rocking

no cry    shush    shush now

I remember you

hushing me calm

on the night seas

of gastric distemper

your smell

of onions and sweat

your smell of mother

of comfort

la    la    la    la

I remember    you

Lucy Simpson

Seattle

1/2009

Jack, My Blue Eyed Boy

I kissed him once when he was six

that giant you killed

licked the apple from his lips

He grew taller when he was eight

past the highest garden gate

taller than the eaves of houses

by the time he was twenty

I never knew where

he disappeared to

some said he ascended

like Jesus to the land beyond

shrouded in clouds

his eyes like wisps of dusk

You were so proud of spying on him

from behind the salt shaker

as he sat weeping over a porridge bowl

while the good gold harp played

The notes caressed his cochlea

Tiny moon coins shined in his palms

The goose egg, one of his nest eggs

was cool to his lips' reverence

those lips with their little heart-shaped pucker

You became a local hero

One of the giant's boots

provided housing

for an alcoholic old woman

and her scads of no-good children

who throw whiskey bottles

out the eyelets like daisies

and the body of my big fellow

is good compost for the barley

which grows taller by July

high as the leaves

whispering the sky

Your only problem

is the stalks' lamenting song

when you walk past

a tune that creeps into you

I cannot comfort you

when you have such fits

I don't really like you

my bonny Jack

Night Divers on the Ocean

To rock upon the night ocean

The night divers and me in the ship

The moon, a work of scrimshaw shines

The palest eye seen

A dragon's pearl-orb tossed among the stars

On the rocks, a seal barks low and deep

bass to the thrum of the boat's whine

below lights tickle the waters

and a mystery is hidden from me

In the warm night below

it will be as if my mother is swaying me

as I drift off deeper

still deeper below the covers

Lucy Simpson, Seattle, 12/2008

Salome

I do not understand my urge to kiss you

as your head approaches upon the disc of silver

polished smooth, radiant moon

I unveil my budded mouth to kiss

your purple-swelled lips, tumescent blooms

and see the birth of stars

what you last saw, love, as the blade severed

the bone-cord that tethered you here

to the earth like a mule

my love for you is naked in my father's hall

my vermilion skirts swirl about my thighs

only caress they have known

at last mother's laugh breaks our moment

she is always laughing her crimson laugh

part beast, part girl

more dangerous for this

forever painting our walls red

no amount of water can clean us

The servant takes you away

I see your head recede

down a darkened corridor

Lucy Simpson

Seattle

10/2008

The Trip to the Shore

How mother you peel the night

like a scale on an eye

like a rib of wood

affixed to the keel of a ship

down below the sea

which rumbles tonight

tumbles to the shore

whispers of the drowned

against coarse sand and salt

black stones and my own feet

those pale fishes

untouched by sun

Lucy Simpson

Seattle 9/2008

wolfie tongues lolled out

wherever she walked

my little lamb

stone by stone

my fingers bled

spade and mortar

it grew to the canopy

her tower

her cage

with a window

unlike Elizabeth Bathory

there was light

always light

and a window

with her singing

a portal to her soul

I would've been

the loaf she trod on

Lucy Simpson
Seattle

8/2008

Mother's Hair

I have waited for this

when birch-wood fingers

unclasp taciturn bun

and auburn currents fall

loose with red fish

swimming in the dull light

of a dirty lamp

where she sits

brush clutched in hand

torturing her scalp

with one hundred strokes

till hair gleams

her eyes narrow to green slits

meditating cat

I am left wondering

if her hair was something

that needed

to be tamed

Lucy Simpson

Seattle

2/25/2006