Mimi
Posted by Steve Bagley
Oh Dottie, grandmother and matriarch,
Shooing away the crows
Perched by the windowsill
Yelling “get away!”
Making a crying face
With no tears
With her beloved Lou
Wasting away
In the next room
He still insists to Dottie
That he will hang on tight
For her sake
But when he’s not under the morphine
He is lucid enough to know
It has got him
This time
And it will not let go
Like vines under the sad rains of Calabria
Until he finally says
“Ok, enough”—
Back where Dottie’s mama and papa dug
And raked dirt
And grew tomatoes in hot dry fields
Under ripe suns
And washed dirt from their faces and fingernails
Before solemnly feeding ten small mouths—
She vacuums a clean rug,
Washes dishes and looks out the kitchen window
As clouds (like shreds of cotton) waft by her apartment
Making sure the crows
Have gone away for now,
She makes coffee for two
But drinks it alone
And is skinnier now
Because she feels Lou’s pain
As well as her own
(He soon will be unrecognizable),
All good mamas feel the pain
Of those they care for,
Such sad tragic creatures who,
By the suffering of others
Grow lines in their faces
And crows feet on their eyes—
Stay up late
And watch the clock
Sick with worry
In pink bathrobes with flower print—
She doesn’t think God is watching or cares,
Yet everyday she gives Lou a sponge bath
Carefully
So he doesn’t wince in pain,
And she boils water for pasta
He won’t eat
Or be able to hold down—
Under sad skies of Revere 1940
(When it was mostly farms and marshes)
She wore a twirling sundress and picked fat blueberries
With her sister Eleanor
And down in the blueberry patches
Is where she and Eleanor first heard a voice
From inside a bush
With the most luscious berries on it,
And saw the devil sitting inside
And they dropped their baskets
Of berries
And ran home
Where both fell ill with fevers—
And both would ever after
Live cursed
With tragic foreknowledge (from dreams and crows)
And despite such a lofty burden
She remained soft hearted and grew
To be a young woman
And young men
Would have to bite their fists looking at her
Knowing she’d never be theirs—
With her high cheekbones
And wise sneaky eyes
And little upturned nose
She was a Calabrese who knew secret forgotten magic and things—
And those features now make for a wise
And dignified sufferer—
For the mysterious shrouded secrets of our familia,
She told us little,
So she wouldn’t scare us small grandchildren
During coffee and desert,
But her and her sister
In their lifetimes would see many specters
And ghosts
Early on in the gardens,
And later on in cathedrals
And in dreams about the old country
With everyone who’s passed
Standing and holding hands
Under a blue moon as the wheat fields
And trees
Swished in the breeze—
But mostly she would just see the crows.
Oh Dottie, grandmother and matriarch,
Shooing away the crows
Perched by the windowsill
Yelling “get away!”
Making a crying face
With no tears
With her beloved Lou
Wasting away
In the next room
He still insists to Dottie
That he will hang on tight
For her sake
But when he’s not under the morphine
He is lucid enough to know
It has got him
This time
And it will not let go
Like vines under the sad rains of Calabria
Until he finally says
“Ok, enough”—
Back where Dottie’s mama and papa dug
And raked dirt
And grew tomatoes in hot dry fields
Under ripe suns
And washed dirt from their faces and fingernails
Before solemnly feeding ten small mouths—
She vacuums a clean rug,
Washes dishes and looks out the kitchen window
As clouds (like shreds of cotton) waft by her apartment
Making sure the crows
Have gone away for now,
She makes coffee for two
But drinks it alone
And is skinnier now
Because she feels Lou’s pain
As well as her own
(He soon will be unrecognizable),
All good mamas feel the pain
Of those they care for,
Such sad tragic creatures who,
By the suffering of others
Grow lines in their faces
And crows feet on their eyes—
Stay up late
And watch the clock
Sick with worry
In pink bathrobes with flower print—
She doesn’t think God is watching or cares,
Yet everyday she gives Lou a sponge bath
Carefully
So he doesn’t wince in pain,
And she boils water for pasta
He won’t eat
Or be able to hold down—
Under sad skies of Revere 1940
(When it was mostly farms and marshes)
She wore a twirling sundress and picked fat blueberries
With her sister Eleanor
And down in the blueberry patches
Is where she and Eleanor first heard a voice
From inside a bush
With the most luscious berries on it,
And saw the devil sitting inside
And they dropped their baskets
Of berries
And ran home
Where both fell ill with fevers—
And both would ever after
Live cursed
With tragic foreknowledge (from dreams and crows)
And despite such a lofty burden
She remained soft hearted and grew
To be a young woman
And young men
Would have to bite their fists looking at her
Knowing she’d never be theirs—
With her high cheekbones
And wise sneaky eyes
And little upturned nose
She was a Calabrese who knew secret forgotten magic and things—
And those features now make for a wise
And dignified sufferer—
For the mysterious shrouded secrets of our familia,
She told us little,
So she wouldn’t scare us small grandchildren
During coffee and desert,
But her and her sister
In their lifetimes would see many specters
And ghosts
Early on in the gardens,
And later on in cathedrals
And in dreams about the old country
With everyone who’s passed
Standing and holding hands
Under a blue moon as the wheat fields
And trees
Swished in the breeze—
But mostly she would just see the crows.
This entry was posted by Ben Myers, on
Friday, June 16, 2006.
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9:28 AM
...She was a Calabrese who knew secret forgotten magic and things—
And those features now make for a wise...
Great line Mr. Bagley