Fairy Ghostmother 

I was nine in '62 and my mother played the game

the one an art degree had not prepared her for

but lurked inevitably, a dread thing, society's dice loaded,

no wild cards in the deck.

She stayed home with us, cleaned and cooked

and wrapped presents with a flourish,

and yearly threw herself into Hallowe'en costuming

such that in autumn that year I sported a white sheet

with slits for eyes, and upon my back was strapped

a cardboard typewriter fashioned entirely from scratch;

I became something I couldn't comprehend: a ghostwriter,

having no idea how clever my mother was,

and after judging, I was a finalist and she, bright-beaming.

I was summoned back to the stage but she had
brought those brand new

all-the-rage pedal-pushers,

turquoise they were, for changing into when done,

and I couldn't wait to don and strut them around,

refusing to return to the lights as a writing ghost,

preferring instead to be a pedaling child.

I remember clearly the pleading, the sadness

in my mother's blue unblue eyes,

not quite understanding how much a win
would mean to her

who would slink home, single-shoed, pumpkin-propelled,

slip the scissors and very magic marker back
into the drawer,

toss the cardboard scrap, shred the sheet for rags, pour all our baths

return to the cycle of dishes and laundry and
children clamoring

to stay up and maybe catch a few fireflies,

hope and wonder still undimmed in them -
and then my mother,

about whose bedtime I never then gave a thought,

would spin fitfully in dreams of canvas and easel

upon which her real life heaved in long thick strokes

having nothing to do with kids or grit or slit white sheets -

a ghost-painter poised over fat blank pads with magentas

yellows and cyans dancing below her waking palette,

but I must have sensed something, as, for a time

I'd cry quizzically pver my favorite show, Queen for a Day,

great bulbous tears globbing my childish cheeks, sensing (is it possible?)

that that each mother is many parts ghost -

not the scary Halloween kind but one who wishes

to fling or actually assume some wing-ed white sheets

and wander the wide and polychromed planet,

pale mistress of delirious dismissed destiny.

 
Copyright 2008 Julianza Shavin