Arthur
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I.
When the Mom
I never had
Lay dying, I
drove non-stop,
Alone, on
coffee,
Power naps
at rest stops,
And little white
pills a long-haul
Trucker in
Denver gave me.
Drove
Seattle to Madison, Indiana,
To spend a
week with this woman,
Institutionalized
when I was four.
She never
got well, never came home.
Over the
years she wrote letters
I dreaded to
read. I never knew
What version
of my Mom I’d find
In the
envelope.
II.
The woman
lying in the narrow bed
Was a
shriveled up little thing.
I could have
wrapped her
In my arms
and held her
On my lap.
III.
Nights, I
stayed in the motel
with Aunt
JoAnne, I very proper woman.
In the
morning, while dressing,
She told me
she had cut out
The crotches
of her girdle
To let her
snatch hang out
Where it was
cooler.
IV.
I spent
hours in my Mom’s room.
Just sitting.
When she woke, we talked.
We said the
words that mattered,
Without
voice, mind to mind.
JoAnne tried
to fill the silence.
Mom said to
her, Why can’t you
Talk to me like
Sonnie?
I didn’t try
to explain.
V.
In the room
across the hall,
Surrounded
by kin,
A silent man
lay dying. His wife,
In that slow
southern drawl
Of
hill-country Indiana,
Complained
of her own pains.
Ah don’t right-ly
know, she said,
Hit might be
the Arthur-i-tis.
VI.
When nothing
seems to work
And my life
is a muddle puddle,
When faced
with the impossible,
I sometimes
think,
Hit might be
the Arthur-i-tis.
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