mother stories

stories about my mother. we all have

them. childhood and before that, theirs

yours ours mine. mothers and mothers before

and my own motheress, which is 

none. Not now, not ever, will not be. Meanwhile

mother stories. Mine are of piers and falls from cars

into the hilly rough asphalt forgotten, lost, falls

into dusty ivy, its papery fakeness full of fireplace

ash.

Guns and shots fired drunks dead hookers 

airplane pilots, monkeys from Mexico in glove compartments.

Steinways jazz clubs the cha-cha in stretch pants cuisine

based on current lovers Japanese Mexican Greek New York

goddamn so many books crossword tarot the I Ching

Jewish mysticism Buddhist philosophies, lies.

Trips to Catalina seaplanes and Shirley Temples goats dance halls gambling

in Gardena while wolf in the back yard illegal and whose godmother

was she anyway? Long night drives from L.A. thick red hair and blue eyeshadow.

Stories of working hard and raising kids alone and going back 

to school nursing drug addictions plastic surgeries movie stars bulimia and ghost

encounters in old hospitals.

Irreverence and a Lauren Bacall laugh chain smoking since 15 anger

flash social phobias small town on the Oregon coast.

Was her dad the Russian Jew scholar or the Irish 

alcoholic who worked on the docks? Stories change.

What of the other daughter, the one adopted out not

my dad or theirs but a new one Japanese fellow, we were told.

somewhere in there was, is, love hard to know until now but now,

now, now, now, now.

now, in her dementia and frailty, now we know this woman's life

was distant and cold and in between life lived as full as possible inside

the hard cracks between her and them, well, no  one deserves this.

regan lee

feb. 2015