My Mother Making Donuts

"my mother, my mother, my mother" by Salvador Dali


My Mother Making Donuts

My mother making donuts and jam in the kitchen
piled with stacks and stacks of dirty dishes.
My brother taking us on family drives
in his Gremlin, Saturdays.
My father working half days on Christmas.
My sister and I playing school
until my mother started throwing dictionaries.
My mother eating bowl-fulls of onions with ice cream
and not leaving the house for years.
My father taking me out to the fields to work with him.
My mother throwing tantrums
My father staying out late, drinking while his buddies
scold me for trying to bring him home.
My sister sneaking out her window
after my father threw her boyfriend out.
My brother reading westerns all day.
My father buying plastic sheets
because my mother wet the bed.
My sister bathing my mother and trying
to trim her fingernails while my brother held her down.
Me feeding my mother tuna casserole.
Me at school, fat, in cheap clothes.
My father buying my mother a walker
because she keeps falling down.
My father hiring a nurse to take care of my mother.
The nurse quitting.
My father hiring another nurse.
That nurse quitting.
My brother, my father and I dropping my mother off.
My father visiting my mother at the nursing home.
My mother not remembering.


C.L. Bledsoe

Posted over on The Dead Mule
From his Chapbook--MY MOTHER MAKING DONUTS