sweetheart redux

My mother and I were women together.  Well, okay, I was only her girl child for some of those years, but I quite easily grasped one evening when I heard the plentiful and ebullient family next door having a barbecue that lasted roughly from noon until midnight the summer of my eleventh year the disquieting contrast between those noises and smells and the quiet dusk of our own kitchen. “I’m lonely. I want more,” my sullen gaze telegraphed itself into her awareness. “I understand, one hundred percent,” the squeeze she gave my hand – two short squeezes and a long one that felt particularly sincere and protective – transmitted. So – this was womanhood, was our own version of womanhood anyway – a cloud of dissatisfaction palpable as a self-separate entity, a runty bunny rabbit, white with those gruesome red eyes. originally published 6/4/18

  I am at a mental hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I had never been to this city before. My room is right next to  the bay of telephones. I feel sad hearing so many patients start conversations with their friends or family and then so soon say,  "Oh, you have to go? Well...goodbye."

The woman with the saggy breasts That woman with the saggy breasts is me But how on earth did that come to be? Mom sloped low with her burdened sigh, Now so do I, so do I.