My Mother's Grief
by Claire Scott
Grief was in my mother’s touch
once removed like a second cousin
grief was how she burned
lima beans and didn’t notice
Her stockings had slid around her ankles
in baggy puddles of beige
grief was how she spent days
Swaddled in loss, listening to Mahler’s
dark symphonies in a dark room
my mother who was there, and not there
She never talked about our older brother
who lived less than ten days
his gossamer ghost wandered
Our house on slippered feet
we could hear him in her sudden sobs
we caught glimpses of him
When she sloshed scotch
when she threatened to swallow
her pills, to drive into a lake, to jump
And was taken away, red lights flashing
on our white cotton nightgowns
my brother, barely there, always there
light as a lullaby, dark as a ledge
once removed like a second cousin
grief was how she burned
lima beans and didn’t notice
Her stockings had slid around her ankles
in baggy puddles of beige
grief was how she spent days
Swaddled in loss, listening to Mahler’s
dark symphonies in a dark room
my mother who was there, and not there
She never talked about our older brother
who lived less than ten days
his gossamer ghost wandered
Our house on slippered feet
we could hear him in her sudden sobs
we caught glimpses of him
When she sloshed scotch
when she threatened to swallow
her pills, to drive into a lake, to jump
And was taken away, red lights flashing
on our white cotton nightgowns
my brother, barely there, always there
light as a lullaby, dark as a ledge
Claire Scott is an award-winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has appeared in the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review, Enizagam, and Healing Muse, among others. Claire is the author of "Waiting to be Called" and "Until I Couldn’t."