Deconstruction of the Blues

Stella Maris

45 STELLA MARIS “I was misformed” she said hanging expectant in her pajamas thick hips heavy legs My mind rolled away from her my mother “Weren’t you Miss Formed of 1947?” time leaving my mother a vessel nowhere to be found And here Miss Toughie of 1998 that I associate with the feisty little girl she’s told me she was feisty lonely “You’re very clever” twists her mouth and she’s gone to her bedroom leaving me black tumbling rococo ice cream flowers nowhere to be found the skinny girl whose legs grew suddenly fat hypothyroid before I was before she was my mother Shame of her body between us Whom I loved my sunsky my meadow the fuse burning hard up against time and death 46 Shame nightmare crack Pop was fated between your fat legs me too But I don’t go to your room Medusa Momma tell me about your life of yearning I don’t say I lie here stoned on the Freudian couch Oedipus platypus fighting warding you off through our years Split Momma’s boy bad boy black ocean street Split like your woman’s body Familiar urge to cry breathlessness those years and their failure Star mother and hectic old woman super kid me me almost an old man My mind tongues that cold tooth of the TB myth Does it still seethe in my unconscious? Did it ever? Do I have an Unconscious? 47 I can hear my mother wafting from her bedroom to the kitchen to do her night dishes Does that googly joy boy exist in me primal like rings in a tree? fat on the piano holding my ball of stars And what did I feel one year old when she left for a year to the TB sanitarium? Absolutely nothing no connection Ur-split the fate crack nowhere to be found Oedipus anaclitic depression the Defenestration of Prague “Goodnight, mister” enigma Momma in her satin pajamas old woman’s chicken breast and arms heavy legs who sounds like 40s music skies me back arched brows pursed lips 48 “Let me give you a goodnight kiss . . . even if you don’t deserve it” “Fresh mutt!” Pop cracks from his urn on the closet shelf My soul wants to reach across and hold her My mind and my gut finick flatly away and what we do is a frozen peck and croon routine “Good night, ma . . . Sleep well” “I hope so” already teetering towards that doubtful dark How dully she accepts it our lovelessness Did I hug her? young starry commanding I can’t remember Did I hug my mother? It rings in my ears teenage ironizing of the little boy Mommy Ma futile bleating sound as though I’m speaking Chinese ...