The Mother.
In her early old age, the mother's toenails
curl over her toes so that when she walks across the kitchen
floor, some click.
The doctor has warned her for the third time
that her legs will ulcerate if she doesn't rub moisturizer
into them, so unwilling is she to touch her own body
or to care for it.
The same woman who stood many nights at the foot of the attic
stairs as her husband weaved and stammered up
into the room where her daughter slept.
On the landing, in her bathrobe, by the laundry chute, unmoving.
Like a statue in the children's game her children play.
And now the soft drone of her daughter's
waking voice, reasoning, and rising, and the first slap.
And the scrape of her son's chair
pushed back from his desk, the air thick
now with their separate listening.
And again, the girl's voice now quietly
weeping and the creak of her bed.
In the game, someone has to touch you to free you.
Then you're human again.