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Why My Mother Never Trusted Me
Paul Fericano

When I could still speak to her
Without pretending I was in a vaudeville act
When she could still attempt to hear me
Without threatening to call the police

When it still made some kind of sense
To keep looking for each other in the same room

I sat with my mother at the kitchen table
Watching her light one Salem after another
Like warning flares on an unfamiliar road
And I asked her about the Great Depression

What was it like growing up
What was it like as a little girl
What was it like to be the baby in the family
Where older brothers ran away from home
To keep from starving

Did you play with dolls?
Did you ride on your father’s shoulders?
Did you watch the street from your bedroom window?
Did you pray for miracles?
Did you know you had nothing?

My mother just pulled harder on her menthol cigarette
A nicotine cloud in the corner of one eye
And exhaled the dry harsh words in sweet smoky swirls
Is this another poem about me?

—
Paul Fericano is a poet, satirist, and survivor of clergy sexual abuse. His most recent book, Things That Go Trump in the Night: Poems of Treason and Resistance (Poem-For-All Press, 2019), was awarded the 2020 Bulitzer Prize. He is the editor and co-founder of Yossarian Universal News Service (est. 1980).

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