Tag: mental health

CHURCH VISITS

We brought you this poinsettia—
would you like it in your room?
Your drawl rich as poppies
introduces you and your children to my mom
who smiles, tries to remember if she knows you,
dementia shredding whole stands of friends each night.

Where would you like me to put it?
No directive in your mist of questions,
knowing Alzheimer’s has already clear-cut her choices.
You sit beside Mom’s bed and talk
with a comfort never shared in our family—
your husband in the reserve, children,
teens really, open as sky beside you.

But when you say your surname, Church, I cringe,
expecting Mom’s grooved tirade against religion
yet it builds a temple pointing to the majesty of blue
through which our planet spins within its womb of stars.

You are the woman I refused to be—
soft-bodied, eyes averted, submissive to spouse and god—
while I’m independent, direct, decisive,
yet am weary of my strength, worn
from years of keeping myself and others alive.

In fact I’m drowning in competence, longing to shed my life and slip into your rose-glow skin reflecting your life’s devotion to faith, service, listening presence, as you teach your children this steadfast path to kindness. Within your sphere of serenity, I pray: Throw me a rope, please, over and o–

Thank you to the editors of Melancholy Hyperbole for first publishing this poem.