POEMS/ Parenting
Parenting
It was like the favorite dress I’d kept so long.
Years after our marriage, our children grown,
I kept trying it on again, tugging it over my hips,
unwilling to admit the fit was off for good.
I dreamed of my old home, seduced by memories –
gnarled apple tree by a window full of blossoms,
songs in the kitchen, twilight stickball in the street,
cowbell ringing to call us in, milk and stories
before sleep. For years, these pictures of the past
sufficed to swallow up my childhood’s darker days –
my father’s rages, my mother’s martyrdom and silence.
But when my parents, unprepared for growing old,
no longer hid behind the curtains of their need, clutter
of magazines, piles of laundry, and unpaid bills,
I parented my parents. I cleaned and cooked and comforted,
until their breathing slowed and ceased, and they were gone,
and afterwards, I swore our children’s coming home
would never end like mine. And now they all are grown,
still coming home, to find us aging – balance slowly tipping.
Migrations, 2013
It was like the favorite dress I’d kept so long.
Years after our marriage, our children grown,
I kept trying it on again, tugging it over my hips,
unwilling to admit the fit was off for good.
I dreamed of my old home, seduced by memories –
gnarled apple tree by a window full of blossoms,
songs in the kitchen, twilight stickball in the street,
cowbell ringing to call us in, milk and stories
before sleep. For years, these pictures of the past
sufficed to swallow up my childhood’s darker days –
my father’s rages, my mother’s martyrdom and silence.
But when my parents, unprepared for growing old,
no longer hid behind the curtains of their need, clutter
of magazines, piles of laundry, and unpaid bills,
I parented my parents. I cleaned and cooked and comforted,
until their breathing slowed and ceased, and they were gone,
and afterwards, I swore our children’s coming home
would never end like mine. And now they all are grown,
still coming home, to find us aging – balance slowly tipping.
Migrations, 2013