Scarlet's Poetry Den - Litany of Scars - Notes to a Missing Lover

Scarlet's Poetry Den

"Litany of Scars - Notes to a Missing Lover"

Primeval Howl in Gestalt (Listen to the poem in RealAudio G2)

my birth/cataclysm that cleft
my mother's young conscience in two
left her Beauty Queen body
with a bellybutton hernia
scored with cords of stretch marks

I, firstborn, dare not touch them
lest they root in my psyche
and I must face her screams
all over again
and again

mother, in the picture of you holding me
on the hospital bed
you look like a recently liberated
concentration camp victim
pale, thin, painted blush and smile
I resemble a Mattel toy
it was a sign
that I got sick on your milk
I suppose I should be grateful
to not be one of your abortions

she must have felt trapped in my playpen
choked by wedding rings
so escaped to I know not where
but my brother
would not let her belly rest

why did she inflict fairy tales
and other claustrophobic, mythic terrors on me?

why did violence
pass as mothering?

but she loved me, yes she did
I hear she sang lullabies
rocked me to sleep every night

I want nothing from her mansions and vast estates
but that simple pine rocking chair

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