Colm has her cheeks. So do I.
 |
| Summer, 1970 |
I wrote this poem in 2000, when she was first diagnosed and being treated for esophageal cancer, which claimed her life a few years later. I love you, Muma. Happy Birthday.
Muma
You told me it was the
depression that brought you together;
You took the bus to work
each day,
stood on the corner in
your stockings and heels,
auburn hair coiffed, hands
gloved. He saw you
as he pumped gas; looked
for you every morning,
ignoring customers to
watch you
disappear up the stairs,
the winged doors
wrap around you and take
you away.
You told me he was afraid
the morning would come
when you didn’t.
I can just hear him
fumbling, bumbling:
“My name is Bernie…It is a
pleasure.”
I can just feel his hand
shaking inside yours, pressing
warmly with his thumb, not
wanting to let go.
“That is how I became your
grandma,” you said.
You told me this
seventy years later, as
you lie
with seventy years worth
of medical discoveries
pumping through your veins,
so much data and
collective evidence, your
cells might as well be
graphs; numbers
instead of blood swim
through your capillary-charts.
You told me all of this in
private,
but as he walked into the
room, eyes so big,
so red, more scared than a
lost child’s,
I knew, he too, was
thinking about that time:
watching you climb the
tall bus stairs,
your heel slipping out of
your dark shoe.
Standing in that room,
your hand pressed
in both of his, he felt
the same terror
choking his heart, as if
he were watching
those wing-doors swathe
around you,
and take you away.
