Ah, Mom

Written by The Amazing Bob on April 30th, 1997 -- the night before his mother shuffled off this mortal coil.

Ah, Mom
Over three months now
Since your stroke
And your strong peasant heart
Keeps beating,
Dragging your poor wasted body
Down, Keeping it on Earth,
Stripping it of flesh
And dignity.

Enough pain,
Enough misery,
Enough, enough.
Amazing enough
You lived 79 years,
Daughter of Polish
Peasant immigrants
In New Bedford --
Then a dying whaling city
Later a dying textile town,
Now, like you, lingering
On deathbed unconscious.

Ah, Mom,
You married young,
In haste --
“Marry in haste,
Repent at leisure”
You used to intone
On drizzly weekends.

Married young, pregnant.
Young, drunken husband,
Three children and
Decades of labor in
Sweatshops, laundries,
Five-and-Dime stores,
Decades of minimum wage jobs,
Decades of cheap porcelain,
Cotton dresses, Spam and
Fried baloney and corn
Chowder.

Decades of Polka music,
Decades of scrimping
And saving for some
Halfassed dream of
Home ownership and
Respectability

Culminating in dad’s
Drunken gunshot suicide
In basement of Dream House
In Fairhaven

One son at sea for 30 years
One son at home
One son seeking working-class
Bohemian bliss,
One terrific grandson --
He in university, free
Of family legacy of
Booze, gambling, deadend jobs
And emotional dysfunction --
And you glad to see it.

At ease in your last decade
With no husband to lock with
In mortal psychic combat --
Got rid of burdensome house,
Moved into quiet apartment
Back in New Bedford --
Where you could play
Your  scratch tickets,
Drink cranberry juice,
Take walks in the sunshine
Listen nights to talkshows
Of American semiconsciousness
On little bedside plastic
Radio

Having survived cancer,
Hysterectomy and radiation
Therapy,
Having lived to see
Your oldest son retire to New Hampshire with
His day job and Business
News

Having seen your youngest son
Survive leg amputation and
His own toughness,
Having seen your middle son
Settle into divorced
Single parenthood in Boston
Having assumed your own
Quiet heartstop in sleep
Some gentle night

But no!

There was instead
The stroke, the
Loss of speech;
The right side paralysis,
The hospital, the rehab
Clinic, the nursing home,
The wasting away.
No way to talk
No way to walk
No way to ever go home again,
Just the slow loss of
Function, the loss of
Appetite

Depriving you of your
Well earned rest
In the bosom of
The universe

Ah Mom
    I love you
    And I wish you death

            April 30th PM 1997
__________________________________________