Mother's ClotheslineA Poem by James William DyerHow the genesis of coldeheartedness towards men can be hereditary.....
Your Mother. Sits crocheting on her couch, cocooning memories of men she'd worn like sweaters Each had quickly became worn and torn for her. She'd stitched, sewed, knitted them together, Worn them on her back and arms Covered her breasts with them, Until those sweaters were just a mangle of yarn stained from nicotine, a ganglia of loose knits dangling. Worn. And worn right out. She'd fastened them one by one to her clothesline with little wooden pegs. Her dummy men. Eventually she bought a washer and dryer, took up knitting, relinquished her men: the tumble of clothespins in the grass below the line--her speechless wooden pawns. All those memories, out to dry. Now she sits here, fretting venom into yarn: they wronged me wronged me wronged me wronged me wronged mE. Her teeth are gone, Jagged pegs, stalagmites of rot that can't even support half a smile, Gone-----are all the men. A cat's cradle of yarn is spun clumsy around the plastic fingers of her prosthetic arm: a tangled past in a false palm. She'd scorched that arm off drunk, In bed. Smoking. Nourishing bitter whiskies. A baby down in her womb, Where she nourished hot rage for the man who spawned it. That had been a tough one to wash off and dry out on the line. Sitting here in her ramshackle shell of a trailer by the highway, I take in her daughter's wet eyes And realize I'll never thread her back together, not all the way. Sitting there in that corner with her scissors of criticism, snipping me to shreds, until I become a confetti of colored construction paper around her toes. The mother's clothesline also pinned the daughter's clothes, the same way it imprisoned those men . I'll be the empty mast of her soiled sheets. Held up, flapping to miserable, dirty sky.
© 2012 James William DyerAuthor's Note
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StatsAuthorJames William DyerBliss, MIAboutI began writing when I was in the fourth or fifth grade. We were extremely poor and my mother had purchased an old typewriter from a yard sale for me, tired of trying to decipher my mangled handrwitin.. more..Writing
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