Today in the street,
I collided
with
the mother
of my husband,
her bundles
falling
to the ground.
Foolish girl
she shouted,
stooping to retrieve her
parcels,
taking no notice
of me.
Well,
she asked,
will you not help
your auntie?
Only then did she look up,
only then did she see.
Her eyes
widened,
then
narrowed,
like one staring
into the sun
looking for some
far away
object.
She stood up,
straightened herself
tall,
taller than I
who am hunched
and bent
from pain in
my joints,
my feet,
along my spine.
Her packages
fell from her hands
and I feared
she might strike me,
but she did not.
Of course
she did not.
She would not touch me,
unclean
as I am.
And what more can you do?
She hissed.
She shook
with rage,
with disappointment,
with shame
for her
son,
for her
family.
Do you not see?
Her voice
rising
above the crowd
in the market,
floating
above the vendors
and the hagglers,
above the children
playing at football,
above the lives
of her son and my father,
the lives she and I
would never have.
Do you not see
how I am made
to suffer?
How deeply a mother
can suffer?
Some in the market had now gathered about us.
I saw friends
of my father,
of my husband.
Relations of ours.
They would not see me.
All of you here,
look
and see if there is any suffering
like mine.
Any such as that
which has been dealt
to me.
Some clucked their tongues,
shook their heads in agreement.
Some sucked their teeth,
spat into the dust.
Someone gathered her parcels,
led her home, weeping.
I remained,
hunched,
my back bent
as though
under
great
weight.
A mother does suffer
so
deeply.
That evening,
when my brother returned
home,
I was told that I must leave
his house.
–E. K. Mortenson,
The Fifteenth Station (2012)
Accents Publishing
More from The Fifteenth Station and E. K. Mortenson:
- “The Second Station”
- “The First Station”
- E. K. Mortenson’s Lexington Poetry Month submissions
- Press for E. K. Mortenson’s The Fifteenth Station
