Mother and Father in Death
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
He dreamed about his mother—then reached out
To touch her, but his hands came up against
A marble wall of blackness. In a pout
She lingered in her death, her love condensed
In all the darker harms she did to him.
Her silent song behind that barrier
Became a solemn blue, a cut-gem hymn
Of compromise. She was a carrier
Of such infections as a mother gives
When she has HIV, although of course
She thought of it as love. The womb scar lives
In him in daylight, having labor’s force.
..His father? Well, his father doesn’t glow.
….His father beckons him in granite snow.
~ Phillip Whidden