"My Mother, If She Had Won Free Dance Lessons."
"Would she had been a person with a completely different
outlook on life?
There are times when I visit and find
her settled in a chair in our dilapidated house.
The neighborhood crazy lady, doing
what the neighborhood crazy lady is supposed to do,
which is absolutely nothing.
And I wonder as we talk our sympathetic talk, abandoned
in easy dialogue.
I, the son of the crazy lady.
Who crosses easily into her point of view
as if yawning or taking off an overcoat.
Each time I visit, I walk back into our lives.
And I wonder, like any child who wakes up one day
to find themselves abandoned in a world
larger than their bad dreams.
I wonder as I see my mother sitting there,
landed to the right hand window in the living room.
Pausing from time to time the endless loop of our dialogue.
The peek for rascals through the Venetian blinds.
I wonder a small thought.
I walk back into our lives.
Given the opportunity, how would she have danced.
Would it have been as easily as we talk to each other now?
The crazy lady, and the crazy lady's son.
As if we were old friends from opposite coasts,
picking up the thread of a long conversation,
or two ballroom dancers who only know one step.
What would have changed if the phone had rung like a suitor?
If the invitation had arrived in the mail
like Jesus extending a hand."