Summer nights,
mother’s gentle drone
like rumpletile skin
spun a thousand yarns
not gold,
but blood and life
flowed through them…
about how, youngest uncle
aged eleven in insane
bouts of frenzy would yell
at grandmother: “I will
quarter you into a thousand pieces”
and how when the wheel turned a full circle
grandmother half insane yelling abuses
(Menopause brought it on
it happens to some women”
mother would explain
when we could understand)
Mother living miles away
could only read about it
from my aunt’s letter.
And gradually the shadows lengthened
of the courtyard trees
mingled with family anecdotes
and sleep gradually overtook us
the last impression–mother’s stark
eyes looking into the
distant past with untold
vignettes that were best
left unsaid…
Juvenilia 