The Eternal Matriarch

It's a strange sight to see on a Sunday night.

My mother and I on the couch

eating crushed glass from a bowl that sits

on the cushion between us.

We take turns reaching long fingertips

to scoop up open shards and

swallow them through lips

parting.

We never touch.

We never will again.

It is a dance best performed

with no one watching.

 

Two generations of blood

sit still for long enough that

the rough love couch molds itself into us, so

we will be remembered

as a pair of far-fetched bodies in

one place.

My tongue becomes a

wasp sting,

with nothing to distract itself from

how lonely it is in maternal silence.

Time goes on.

Our desperate, reaching fingers are

no longer an act of movement,

but an act of staying solid enough for touch

to still be a thing to avoid.

Years pass on this Sunday night.

 

I get up first and leave quietly

out the back door.

She doesn't ask when I'll be home.

In some small corner of my mind,

I hear her humming,

listening to Joni Mitchell

while she washes up.