Today My Mother Called to Apologize
Nothing else — she wanted to hang up
immediately after. She is 92. I am 64.
When I was 3, she put me in a diaper
to punish me for an accident.
Maybe you would’ve turned out
better, she said. Without that. I wanted
to weep — my earliest memory:
in the hallway, younger siblings staring,
older, turning away. She had five kids
in seven years. If you wanna be
a baby, I’ll treat you like one.
The cloth diaper sagged its awkward
bulk between my legs. How long
did you make me wear it? I wanted to ask,
but she’d had enough of her daily shames:
blindness, wheelchair, and someone else
wiping her ass. We gave my son an M&M
every time he peed in the toilet. Two
for poop. My daughter didn’t need the bribe.
Rank your humiliations on a scale
of one to ten. I hadn’t thought of it
in years. Giddy with sliding on rugs
down the slick tiled floor. The exhaust
fan rattling useless in August heat.
Windows stuck in humid air. My mother
yanked and struggled. My father at work, then
and always. Factory darkness we could not
imagine, like deep dirt in the yard,
cold black beneath the frayed weeds
of our primitive growing. Alone
with five kids. Don’t lose any sleep
over it, I told her. It came out cruel.
She sounded hurt. What will I apologize
to my children for at the end, alone
with the TV drone of faraway voices?
My father says it’s too long a drive
to visit us anymore, my mother unable
to navigate, or notice when he drifts
off. Scar tissue tears with sharp pain,
then eases to let you move further, forward.
Today my mother dialed 3 on her phone
with the giant numbers that connects us,
for I am the middle child. Years ago
I punched a hole in the wall at the end
of that hallway, and even after my father
repaired it, you could see its outline there.
Cruelty has its place, and its place was there.
What did she do after hanging up?
Sitting in her chair by the window
did she feel sunshine hitting her face
blessing her with forgiveness?
I’ll be good, I should have said.
Or maybe gone back
to sing her a lullaby.