May 2018
David Graham
grahamd@ripon.edu
Note: I originally drafted this month’s poem, “My Mother Could Not Be Trusted,” about six years ago, but was never quite satisfied with it. Then in February of this year my mother died, after a long and heartbreaking physical and mental decline. In my grief I went back to the draft and somehow found a way to bring it to completion. I suppose this was part of my mourning.

My Poetic License column is a further installment in my Poetry Aloud series, this time a series of brief reflections on some things I’ve learned over several decades of listening to poets as different as Elizabeth Bishop and Michael S. Harper present their work aloud. 
read it HERE.
 
My Mother Could Not Be Trusted
 

to tell it straight. She loved welshing
on a bet, spinning tales, splashing
in hyperbole's lake. Relished a circus,
the bellow and roar, musk and glitter,
bananas vanishing down clown pants
in cheap yellow air. First in line for
the freak show, dazzled by carny patter.
Never met a dog or horse she didn't
love. Children, maybe yes, maybe no.
She spoke other languages if possible,
applied pressure to a bleeding wound,
plunked floundering toddlers out of
the deep end, getting her good
house dress soaked. You wanted her
around in an emergency. But what
an unreliable witness! She told it slant,
but never all. Couldn’t tell it straight,
I think, but when have facts been
the point of any tale? Don't bet against
her, friend. Did her many balloons wobble
brightly to the ceiling? Yes. Did she
place a single peanut on my pudgy
palm for the elephant to lift with its
trunk? Of course. A touch still lifting
me sixty years later. My mother would
never turn away from any elephant,
juggler, parade, song, any blooming
barker’s lie like a drum beating this earth.
©2018 David Graham
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