My Mom has been in my thoughts a lot this week, seeing women who remind me of her round town, and in my dreams. This is one of my favorite poems about her. Thanks, Citron review, for publishing it last May.
by Lisa Eve Cheby
Forget making it beautiful,
it is still the only thing I can do better
than my mother: this walnut torte,
even this living alone, a display,
an exaggerated suffering,
will not garner her admiration
though I rarely indulge in
pleasure. The lack of it, makes me
clumsy, like an angel trapezing despite
the fact that he has wings.
Do you know the password
to get inside the state of mind
where you can hear the choirmaster
on whom we depend to know when
to crescendo and when to adagio?
Though it is all moot:
neither my mother nor I could sing
but sometimes, sitting on the train,
or in the stacks of the library
a voice speaks to me
rhapsodomantic as desire.
Lisa Eve Cheby’s poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in various journals including The Rumpus, Tidal Basin Review, A cappella Zoo, TAB, Entropy, and
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Lisa Eve Cheby 