Songs for Orphaned
Mothers
© Josephine Carubia 2019
Song I
Do orphans make the best mothers?
or grandmothers?
Are they grateful for the scraps
and just
one solid man?
Do they raise loyal children who
gather on Sunday
to eat
their
sustenance and
witness their
amazement?
Will they muscle nothing, no,
less than nothing,
into a noisy fragrant kitchen
full of helping hands?
Does an orphan mother mourn?
Does she know the whole cloth of
what she
doesn’t know?
Where were you born?
When were you alone?
You came so far.
Did you find it here,
what you lost?
Was it enough?
What is enough?
When is
enough?
How is
enough?
Who is
enough?
Where is
enough?
The map of you has few places
marked.
Places called together
and
places called
alone.
Does being mother cancel
being orphan?
How many stitches to hold it all
together,
but never quite
repair?
Is it good enough? Or could it
possibly be
beautiful?
I am making this song for you and
all orphan mothers.
Song II
You were broken when they died,
but the
needs of others
fused your
bones into
shapes and
purposes.
Silent and hurt,
you submit
your dreams
of home to
the required
husband’s
ambition.
Still a child, you
bore a
child with
no mother
of your own.
You fed the living children and
the dead.
You hoarded scraps
against the
day
of hardships beyond
the dry
charity
of a
suffering town.
The gabriel went over sea
and under
ground
to return
and leave,
return and
leave.
Return.
Still, not much was
something
familiar on
your
tongue.
Broken again, in the dark,
shaken,
soiled and sick,
holding
only wisps
of once
familiar penury
as
beautiful memory.
Meanwhile huddled children caring
for
children iterate
towards new
trajectories
invisible
on the shifting dim
horizon.
Song III
You don’t smile toward
the future—
Why would you?
If you knew I was
coming,
would you smile?
Between that girl with a
ribbon in
her hair
And me, mistress of comfort
and
machines,
A century of burdens
borne
across vastness,
punctuated
by rare moments
of ease, if
not joy.
The photographer’s moment,
a pause
before
the abyss.
You, however, persisted.
stepping
forward despite
the drag of
events,
towards
this intersection
of your
hopes and my thanks.
A century passes.
A faded photo surfaces.
Lines intersect.
I recognize you.
Your hand held still and straight
is my hand
still.
Your wrist outgrowing
its sleeve—
your stance
with weight
on one
foot—
Your face, the same and different.
All familiar; all family.
Girl!
One fancy dress over
one heart.
Beating.
I remember your words for
a full
belly in dialect.
I remember the heavy bucket of
soapy water
up and down
the
building hallways and stairs,
and I
remember the mop.
I remember you calling “Sal-lee”
up the dark
shaft window
by the
sink.
Do you recognize me?
This is my hand
at the end
of your arm.
Song IV
This corner tells the story of
that time you cried.
Here you climbed the hill
just to
find she was
already
gone.
This piece is for when
you waited,
and waited,
and waited.
But here you saw a star
streaking
across
the sky and
thought
it was a
sign of
future joy.
This rough patch speaks
volumes about
harsh voices always
leaning against you.
Song V
She is not who you think she is:
a fat old woman in a faded dress
stepping from stove to sink to
table
on swollen ankles.
Once she was an orphan girl,
an island girl, almost cinderella,
married at fifteen,
but not living the dream.
Not beautiful, but determined.
Sometimes looking out the window
to the others bustling on first
avenue.
Sometimes falling asleep in the
kitchen.
From discarded pieces and bits,
mingled with tears, blood, and
love,
she generated family:
hard-won wedges
into uncertain futures.
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