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
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