D
A Matter of Choice
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To be a mother
Sometimes
We have to give up our own.
In the dark hall
nothing but bare feet
move toward a baby's cry.
A moth flutters to light.
In solitude we all bend in silence squatting in grass huts
nestled in hi-rises
hunched in tenement rooms.
At first we spring like puppets,
mimic seasoned gestures.
Weeks pass.
Pantomime
dissolves
Into strokes and lines
́signs converging with new power
nimble, primed, unique to ourselves.
Sometimes
the puppet cuts the strings
pulls down the purdah*
beats the drum!
Against great odds the puppet regains her strength.
She looks up
hooded figures malinger
muffled voices
Who can count
ominous
from behind masked faces.
the number of untold, unshared
sorrows
of those who became mothers
out of submission
Who can say
hunger and
loneliness
chains?
accident
I am here because I was wanted?
Childhood Images
like mercury in its free state
play hide and seek.
www
i
earth
apvi
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Later
the truth may crystallize in a moment:
Sisters visit mother, a sumptuous meal And too much wine.
The wrong thing said, a quarrel ensues.
She could have done better than raise ungrateful daughters. She had her
dreams.
A family gathers at Christmas.
One daughter, single and 34
Her woman lover in Cincinnati
Her own mother
deferred.
the gifted one
blology put aside, thesis unfinished.
A labcoat hangs in the attic closet.
She glares at her daughter.
Trinkets dangle from the tree on thin, transparent threads.
Another visits her mother in Pittsburgh
Industrial widow
a bird, an empty nest,
an apron catches her tears.
The pension severed.
The widow rocks, counting years of raising ten children,
as suicide tugs at her skirt.
The truth crystallizes in a moment
Or else it ripens in time.
Either way it compels you to
Defy the puppeteer
Overthrow the one above you
As if choices
were mere favors to be
Snatched away.
pulling strings
Marionettes are made of plaster and wood.
Moths dance in the summer night, dazzled by the light.
-By Carol Epstein Copyright March 1981
'purdah: in india, a curtain used to screen off the part of the house where women are secluded, too s
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What She Wants
SEITZ -AGIN HARDWARE
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April, 1981/What:She Wants? Pas
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