Mother Quiet

    I, too, felt chased, hunted—
    so when I passed your room
    I didn’t stop for you,
    didn’t lift and carry you
    out of that “pit”
    I heard you call it,
    that square, that bed.

    Up into my arms I did not bring you,
    there, there, I did not say, Mother,
    quiet, I’ve got you now.



    The After

    Fifteen years, no calls, no letters
    and now he comes home, walks right in,

    His father just one-hour dead, seizure
    then silent. All night his son

    perfectly calm, a warm flood
    within him—“Quite dead,”

    his family heard him whisper—
    “Quite dead!” next morning as he leapt

    from the porch laughing his way
    toward their northern treeline—

    “Gone,” his mother often sighs,
    decanting wine, carving up turkey—

    “Quite gone,” his sisters and their husbands
    nod and chew, and his nephews and cousins—

    even the ones far removed.



     Monday at Lunch

    This booth is reserved for me.
    This booth is endowed by me.
    It is not enough that you serve me
    promptly today, smilingly…
    Less hungry today than I was
    Monday at lunch, I needed you then.
    I was shaking and you didn’t see that I’d emptied
    twelve sugar packets into my palms.
    I licked my palms as if there was no tomorrow.
    I wasn’t sure there would be a tomorrow.

     



    Bio Note
      Martha Rhodes is the author of two poetry collections At the Gate (Provincetown Arts, 1995) and Perfect Disappearance,
      winner of the 2000 Green Rose Prize from New Issues. She is the Director of Four Way Books, an independent literary press and teaches at New School University and Emerson College.

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     Martha

     Rhodes