S. Paladino

PHYSICS

It defies physics.
Out of the loins of
such a thin, diminutive being,
how could four strapping, strident, near-adults spring?

But this woman is no shrinking violet.
Her legs may be sticks, her arms twigs;
a grayish down blurs the border
between chemo-smoothed pate and sky.
With this last admission, her legs
wouldn't listen,
folded under her,
were indifferent to
the flood of red loosed
from between them, and
mopped up by nurses.

For a while, we lost contact
with her.

Like the shoot of a forest floor plant,
she dwelled for a time in the humusy dark,
still and silent to us
but in constant exchange of whispers with
the dark, fertile muck,
discussing timing, and options.
She chose this time
to be mother again
to those strapping children, rather than
return now to her own mother.
And pushed up and out through the
layers of debris,
till she found the light of the hospital room,
and demanded that, in the future,
she be resuscitated,
though the doctor clearly thinks it foolish.

As soon as she knows up from down,
she is on the task of looking after her daughter,
teenager who has born the brunt of
too much knowledge, things she
shouldn't have to know and feel
so young, running
in the street with a violent crowd,
staying out all hours.
But who phones the hospital room
of her mother incessantly,
about sibling rivalry,
about why the new bag of IV medicine.

That same daughter also knows
a secret about
her mother's illness,
that must scald her young heart.

Mom can't walk, but
she is right behind her daughter,
worried about her safety.
They tell her she hasn't long,
that she is increasingly defenseless,
deteriorating.
But she won't retreat,
won't hoard her precious life force
against the day there is no more
to draw from.
From her pillow,
she beats the bushes.
She will even put aside the shame
of asking strangers
to nab her daughter from the streets,
confine her,
will even risk
a vengeful child's spilling of a hard-kept secret,
in order to defend that daughter's life.

She may be tiny, thin,
like sticks and twigs,
but she isn't small.
They continue to tell her
what bad shape
she's in.
She continues to not fall apart.
They think she's in denial.
I think she's in full possession.

S. Paladino
4-14-04