​
The Squeaky Wheel


My mother--pretty, prim,
never flashy-- turned out
in her white gloves for Saturdays
at Wanamakers, downtown.
She taught me to eat lunch only
in places with white tablecloths,
cloth napkins, and the hum
of quiet conversation,
and corrected my infelicitous
grammar, gleaned from playmates
on the grubby streets of Philadelphia.
For this I belatedly thank her,
though she kept her imagination
buttoned up against uncivil
thoughts, tried unsuccessfully
to censor mine as well.
 
It must have been hard
to have been married
to my father, king
of wherever he was,
who embodied such drama,
dark brows lowered,
ready for a storm.
He mocked her manners
and her haughty bearing,
the perfect enunciation
that made her so conspicuous
despite herself.
Yet she never said a word,
except under her breath,
and then only in Afrikaans.
 
I used to love to watch her
pouring tea for smiling
women friends, high priestess
of civility, but they would never
visit more than once.
My father drove them off,
and then the silver tea
service and cutlery she’d bought
in London were retired.
She polished them
in silence, or else recited
tales of former glory as she rubbed,
as though her efforts
might restore the past.
 
Soon, no one would listen
when she spoke.
I’d heard it all before.
My father simply
told her to shut up.
She stopped singing,
telling stories of her family
in South Africa, and slipped
away, into her private world.
 
So when at 93, her mind
half gone, she let me see
the jealousy she felt
at the attention her husband
always got from everyone--
caregivers propping up his pillows,
polishing his shoes, doctors
laughing at his jokes
and jotting notes about
his special, complicated case--
it spoke a lifetime of missed chances,
regret that she, so charming
and popular in youth,
had been reduced to this.
“Doctors want to see
me too,” she said,
pointing with a pink-tipped finger
turning away.

  originally published in Other-Wise (Kelsay, 2017)