9/27/09 Patricia A. Hawkenson’s Reflections

Blood is Thicker Than Water

I probably should not
have agreed to be a zombie
in my step-daughter’s movie
where home-made blood
was tossed on me
by the bucket full.

I have successfully washed
the blood off my clothes,
but on two separate shootings,
hoping for protection
in a back pocket of my jeans,
two innocent cell phones,
were killed
by drowning.

Zombie phones
don’t come back to life.
They die forever
doing Heavy Duty.

It’s okay to use two cans
and a lifeless string
to a call a friend
when you are young
and immortal,
but not so much
at 52.

Fortitude

Under my bedspread
thrown over a card table
with only room
for a pillow,
a blanket,
a box of crackers,
and me,
safety could still
squeeze in.

But I grew
and it became difficult
to keep my legs inside,
and so I stopped
hiding there.

I would go to Mom
who would hold me
and tell me
time and time again
that everything
would be alright,
and in my innocence,
I believed her.

Until sometime in adolescence
I came home from school
and discovered
my mother crying,
no place
to hide her tears.

I pulled my bedspread
off my bed,
climbed up next to her
and wrapped it around us
telling her it would be alright.

We were old enough
to know better.
She just continued to cry.

Even though nothing was more frightening,
there was no room
to shed my tears.

Armory

She is sock footed
in her pajamas
pulling a worn throw
over her shoulder
now curving
into the deepest
corner of the couch.

I take the deep breath
that she cannot
and reach into my arsenal
of aspirin,
and hot compresses,
thermometers,
chicken soup,
and cool wet rags
to lay upon her brow.

It is hard to watch my child cry,
her eyes pink and longing,
her fingers weak and airy,
a trail of tissues
in her slow wake.

She empties her eyes,
and only the arm of the couch
and I
are able to read the message
in the wet dots
she drops:

Fix me, Mom.

I sit next to her
my hand rubbing on her foot,
her eyes finally closing
in exhausted sleep.

We breathe.

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