Mom,<\/p>\n
You were born to a mother
\nIn and out of the hospital
\nAnd by \u201chospital\u201d I mean psychiatric facility
\nAnd by \u201cpsychiatric facility\u201d I mean off-white walls
\nBlinking neon-lights
\nThe slick of piss on the floor
\nMoans behind cracked doors.
\nShe hits you like a stranger
\nEyes blank of recognition
\nBites you, kicks you
\nCurses you and your father
\nAs you drag her
\nScreaming
\nOut of the house
\nAgain.
\nYou never had a mother
\nYou had a sick older sister
\nAn open wound that never heals.<\/p>\n
You live
\nYou thrive at school
\nCollege interview, Harvard U
\nIn a room full of mahogany and leather
\nHe asks, eyes on your application, , \u201cwhat does JYL stand for?\u201d
\n\u201cJewish Youth League, sir.\u201d
\n\u201cAh…I see, you\u2019re a Jewess.\u201d
\nSo you go to you U Conn and get your BS.<\/p>\n
You and Angela Davis
\nTeach for Herbert Marcuse in Ohio
\nThe three of you, together, travel to California<\/p>\n
Two weeks after your marriage
\nNo honeymoon
\nYour husband is carted off to Vietnam
\nTo return in six months time
\nIn a bag, drapped by a flag.
\nNo!
\nHis body is never found
\nThere is no bag
\nOnly a flag
\nWhich you burn
\nForging your tears into steel
\nTo do battle on the 6 o\u2019clock news\u2013
\nWidows against the war
\n\u201chey, hey, LBJ
\nHow many kids did you kill today?\u201d<\/p>\n
You marry a strange, handsome man
\nWired, with cruel eyes and a burning tongue
\nWho can make you laugh
\nHe makes you laugh so hard you shoot cheap red wine right out your nose
\nHe makes you laugh so hard you have to put the sword down.<\/p>\n
When he shows up at your apartment
\nFor your first date
\nIn a 3-piece suit and tie\u2013
\nSan Diego, 1967\u2013
\nYour roommates think he\u2019s a narc.
\nHe became, he remains, your co-conspirator.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re ABD when the head of your department
\nAn old, white man with wolf blue eyes
\nCorners you in his office
\nAnd tell you he will never let you pass
\n\u201cThe world doesn\u2019t need another female professor.\u201d<\/p>\n
So you fly to England with your husband
\nAnd birth a child
\nWho you never wanted
\nBut they expect it
\nAnd, I guess, you are tired of fighting<\/p>\n
Only you don\u2019t get tired of fighting
\nNot for long
\nAnd you come back to the U.S.
\nAnd march down the beach
\nTo the power plant
\nProtesting.
\nYou, me, and Dad
\nSurrounded by a ragtag bunch of New Left survivors
\nAgainst a town full of lace-curtain Irish
\nAnd Italian, outer-borough refugees
\nWho traded in their Chevy\u2019s for a Cadillac-ac-ac-ac
\nAnd their faith
\nFor low taxes and good schools
\nCancer money
\nCourtesy of the Long Island Lighting Company.<\/p>\n
And we don\u2019t stop there
\nMarching against the proxy war in El Salvador
\nAnd the early-eighties arms race suicide sprint
\nD\u00c3\u00a9tente is dead, greed is good, the dream is over
\nI ride on your shoulders.<\/p>\n
And you never quit
\nTyping away at your dissertation
\nDay after day sunlight falls to shadow along your poster:
\n\u201cA woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.\u201d<\/p>\n
A decade later you march down the aisle\u2013
\nDad didn\u2019t show
\nHe had, \u201cbetter things to do\u201d\u2013
\nCap and gown you step
\nShoulders back
\nHead up
\nEyes on fire.
\nYou had to soldier for everything you got.<\/p>\n
You dole out these stories, rarely, like praise
\nOver cooling plates
\n\u201cJust the two of us tonight, kiddo.\u201d
\nYou still send his mother flowers every year
\nYou know, I never knew his name
\nYou know, I grew up half starved, how much these dinners meant.
\nMom, your love does not come cheap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mom, You were born to a mother In and out of the hospital And by \u201chospital\u201d I mean psychiatric facility And by \u201cpsychiatric facility\u201d I mean off-white walls Blinking neon-lights The slick of piss on the floor Moans behind cracked doors. She hits you like a stranger Eyes blank of recognition Bites you, kicks you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freaksoftechnology.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freaksoftechnology.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freaksoftechnology.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freaksoftechnology.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freaksoftechnology.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/freaksoftechnology.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91,"href":"https:\/\/freaksoftechnology.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions\/91"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freaksoftechnology.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freaksoftechnology.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freaksoftechnology.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}