Excerpts from Psalms for a Child Who Has Lost Her Mother . . .

Shame

Of a sick person in the house,
then taken away.
In a room, not dressed.
Decay.

If you don’t say it, it won’t be true.
They ask, and I don’t answer:
Where she went,
that she went.

Molly in the playground asking,
“What’s wrong with your mother?”
Answering the phone with “She’s not here.”

Opening the door to an empty kitchen.
Entering my classroom
to silence and stares.

That it didn’t matter if we were good,
didn’t disturb her,
didn’t cry or pound the door.

That we could not make her better.
We could not save her.
That she left me.
That people come to the house
and she is gone.

Absence

This I missed:
my shape,
her image,
silhouette, profile,
resemblance.

Everything you remember and carry:
the day when
the night
the morning
the summer
the April.

Smoothing the bedclothes
cooling your forehead
putting on a dress
a hat
heels
nose in a book
voice reading a story
hand on your shoulder
how to be.

Standing behind you,
crying at your wedding.
At your wedding.

The echo in your words,
your deeds,
the voice whispering
in your head.
The chorus for your enthusiasm,
the oxygen for your breath.

Knapsack

I will carry her in my pocket
like a slingshot
like a candy bar
like change to buy it
like shells from the seashore.
In my knapsack
like a sweater against the cold
a trail map to find my way
a pocketknife
binoculars to see from the top of the hill.

I will ask her
which fork to take
which way to return.

Excerpts from Psalms for a Child Who Has Lost Her Mother, Finishing Line Press
Copyright (c) 2015 by Carol Japha