If Mama Was A Pie

Quite frankly, we were angry.
And, we are all angry. (The way she was angry.)
And, like her, we cannot let go
But if we don’t let go, we will surely die
for the sin of our delusions.

But this is the way it is
Because, when we first opened our eyes,
She was as big as the full moon,
Bending to us, strong, graceful,
Embracing & caressing us tip to toe
With her red velvet lips
And her clear, pale blue eyes
And her crown of hair wild as the night
And twinkling in its spatter
of distant stars.

With her milky arms and legs, long as temple columns,
And her milky ways, she steamed on a cold morning
And was like the air is, for inhaling,
Like the water is, for floating, imbibing, reviving.

She was the earth of us -- the riches, the fertile fields that held us,
Into her we drove our roots deep down and held her tight,
For dear, dear life. And learned that life was dear
(when you could see past your nose to the plain
Light of day, the universals -- oh, she
Pushed us, fairly and unfairly, to open our eyes ...
Oh, dear. Oh, my dear. Oh, honey.

We babbled like babies and rushed like brooks as we rapidly
Would go soaking her up like sponges, clinging like cling peaches,
We ingested her daily and she was consistently there -- albeit
Gradually more distracted, divided, in fragments
And dying -- even then,

Nonetheless, the sun rose and the day broke from her, for her,
With her and she resolutely and stubbornly sheltered us and watched out Us, writing us notes in the steep, sugary mythology of our dreams,
And her dreams, again and again. Even while dying.

The revelation was that since there were four daughters
It didn’t take forever to discover her betrayals:
That she was unfaithful, a liar, who as often as she reached for me
Was turning away, reaching for one of the others, for you --

When my back was turned, while I slept, she was singing
the same lullaby to them, telling them, re-telling you,
The same sorry lies that I naively trusted to be mine.

And, of course there was our rival and father,
Her husband, who art forever at the office,
Who was as duped as the rest of us,
And, like all the world's spurned and scorned ones,

Was forever (and will be now, in his good heaven)
Railing, as he was arriving or departing, slamming the car door,
Ranting in the driveway, raving as he stormed the living room,
The kitchen, the toilets, the basement, the kitchen cupboards,
The bedroom bookcase -- all the wall-to-wall, grey-carpeted,
Low-slung house that was so confining to her,
So indispensable to life as we knew it
And, at the same time,
Nanosecond by nanosecond,
Speck of dust by speck of dust, did
Bury her alive.

No matter. Not really. Never mind.
Beside her ravaged, pining, desolate, angry, savaged self
She was also the author of him as prodigious provider,
The legend of him she meticulously co-authored
Very early, applying a little yellow stub of a pencil
To the flyleaf of a battered paperback book ...

If she was not my but our mama
If she swept herself off her own feet
And she dusted and powdered herself with fragrant talc
While she also sliced and sliced herself into increasingly small servings
On shrinking, shifting plates until all we, any of us, had was a
Shiny, empty thimble and a slice of pie that wouldn’t
Fill a bottle cap.

None of us could possibly have our fill, get enough and give thanks,
Enjoying the illusion of fullness -- or peacefully napping in our chairs
Around the table; none of us curled up by the fire to sleep
The sweet sleep of the innocents.
No, we lived in the inexcusable shadowland
Of resentment.

Our story is her rage, her losses, her fading beauty and fading
Powers. We held fast until her lights, flickering violently,
Went down and out -- as ours will, as yours will, one fine day.

Despite and deriving from this untidy stew,
That she stirred then and we stir now -- refreshing and replenishing--
As we grew and she faded and everyone and everything dimmed
(Dimmer and dimmer) we were not learning to be without
her, to carefully pour our own thimbles of milk,
Drink them down and be done with it.

Fine, we knew it would fall apart, but we nevertheless trusted
That she would always be there -- the flawed and flawless
Life-giving pie of her -- entirely for us,
Each of us, individually, every last slice …

And, we would all live forever (although we saw she was
Dying), and she would live forever, in the steam and bubbles
Of the eternal fountain of our entirely unreal expectations
That entirely derived from her, with her, in her.