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My Mother Was
Fred Carroll

My mother was
In this order
A Boston Irish Catholic
Of clannish and contentious
Immigrant stock
Which the two generations that
Preceded hers
Failed to dilute.
She seemed to have also
Inherited moods of
Irrepressible joy and
Abiding sadness which
Were locked in an eternal
Struggle for her spirit.
She had two constant companions:
Books and a coffee cup full of
Something that remained nameless
But required ice cubes.
Her laughter, when that angel was out,
Was a high register
Of human glee.
The soprano in the opera.
When she laughed everyone else did.
She loved to quote from
What she was reading.
Even if the listener
Had no idea what it meant,
It didn’t matter,
Someone had to listen.
Poetry was her home
Emily Dickinson was the daughter
She never had.
The blunt truth she spoke
Harpooning the comforting
Nonsense of her day.
Hemingway, she said, could make you smell
”The slime upon the skin of a snake.”
Camus would make you know
What you really didn’t want to.
In her way, she was dangerous.
She could flit through a room
With the one tenth of an ounce weight
Of a finch
Or roar by
With all the tonnage of a pterodactyl
Looking for an argument
About Steinbeck.

—
Fred Carroll is a retired high school English teacher.

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