Luck (For Lorraine)

Rosemary Daniell

"When will my luck change?"
      --ad for a telephone psychic

You called today to say that two years ago
your second daughter Kathleen was beaten
to death with a sledge hammer that last year
your third Jill daughter ran off with the drugs that
her dealer threatened your life & you
wrote him a check for all your small savings:
that luckily he was murdered before
he came back the next week: all this a few years
after your first daughter Lori shot you
in the head & then shot herself. . . .
                                                       But
the up side of this you say is that
you've separated from the husband
who blamed it on menopause when you dyed
your hair blonde had your face lifted went out
dancing found a younger boyfriend thus
he claimed inciting Lori's mother-killing
rage. As you talk I recall a dozen
years ago: you a small graying woman as
impressionless as a nickel asking me
the published author to speak at your church
of how the next time we met you lifted
a Clairoled strand to show the scars still raging
behind an ear (you had offered a gift
a bunch of azaleas you said instead
Lori had raised the pistol and when
she ran out of bullets drove off to buy more
giving you time to drag yourself bleeding
down a stair). For one moment as you talked
your golden hair glowed a halo. And I think
now how we are sisters yes how pain guts
& levels us.... Oh I know some would say
there must be something wrong with you that not
so much could come to one innocent woman.
But I know otherwise: how the fates can load
the dice & throw them in one direction. Ours.