kryptonite mama

30 years ago, you’d call me
          & I’d hold the phone
away, turn pale & tremble––
    I didn’t know
          I didn’t know you
then.

20 years past–– I returned
   from far, to tend
    your ailing heart––
I found you drowning in
       cigarette butts, beer
cans & the smell of sadness.
   what could i do for you?
i didn’t know.

when your husband
   broke your wrists––
first one, then the other––
    you whimpered in rage to curse
the man who hurt you.
   i let you keep your
anger & your pain
   too shocked to tell you
anything you didn’t want
   to know.

now you are sighing
   like a dying child &
i hear you from
   my deepest wound.
                                                                                  ¶

in this quiet time, when the wind
   is still, while the leaves wait
like shadows in the trees & before
   the darkness––

God teach us to savor
   the irreplaceable sweetness
of your pain

a shy girl on two-wheeled
   roller skates
too excited about life
   to cry.