Never Enough For Mother (1)

I was never enough for you.

Could never say what you wanted to hear.

Could never do what you wanted to see.

Could never think how you wanted me to think.

I was never enough for you.

Whatever happened to you

In your youth?

Where was the love you should have

received back then.

Your youth faded away.

Put to work at a tender age.

Life must have been a dream.

After your nightmares were through.

How did you survive?

What was new? Did it make you wise?

You came to America.

The Hemingways, your host.

Did you ever meet Ernest to boast?

What else did you do than teach their kids Spanish?

Did they see how tyrannish you can be?

Or did your madness come from a hysterectomy?

From that child you never got enough.

But from me, a disappointment to you.

I stood up for myself at every attempt.

To beat me down.

To mold me into your image I should be.

I was always too much for you.

_____________

1. i.e., Adopted Mother.

_____________

Kilmer Poetics Journal