GIVING IN
Parted from its destined bloom
---reality's sharpened edge---
shears shorted stem, so fatally
budling's ripped from mommy's arms
To this event I do relate
detour through a withering garden
feet beating frozen ground
trekking same unkindly path
I fear to go as she before me
maternal curse come round.
Am I to shrivel in mid-season
as well--none in my corner?
This last testament I write
to whomever sees
here at last stop--abandoned bricks--
lie down and wait….
Faith, it vanishes,
drill-pressed crushed
blood no longer warms
flesh on limbs no longer sense
lungs rattle in their cages
ghastly gurgling out
my garden carefully planted, dims
and leaves no trace behind….
Fran Hinkle----1/10/04
Author's Notes/Comments:
I wrote this while I was
in the middle of such
despair, knowing what lie
out there, waiting for me. My mother had died as
a direct result of her mental illness, having been homeless, walking the streets--unbeknownst
to me--then finally died
in a local hospital, after having been in ICU
for ten days; her physical health was, at
best, critical. She was found by ems, passed out
for approx. 3 days, lying in her own feces and other bodily fluids,
in a furnitureless apt.
I've carried this with me
for over a decade. And now that I face the same
conditions of homelessness, being shunned by family, and having walked in the cold
freezing conditions of
winter streets, I thought
of her, and how her situation compared, in part, to my own. It is a vicious thought, to think
that a daughter might be taking on the "curse" of
her mother, and how hard
a curse it is to break.
