Mother

You were born as they took Iwo Jima
Some distant drum, displaced hum
Trills in your soul- I plead to be heard
But we’ve already succumbed
These throes are just the undertow
And you’re a genuine tragedy:
What does that make me?

When they called you Mein Führer,
Snickering in scorn,
Describing to me a faded ghost,
But he was flesh when you were born
The comparison to you far closer
In the social memory:
Did it sting?

The nations united that year;
It’s staggering to think of all you saw
You travelled so long,
And what is your flaw?
Erased limbs, smudged names,
You’re a blank family tree:
You refused us any history.

I used to wonder what broke you;
Some kind of cataclysmic shatter
But your lies filling the vacant spaces-
It was the lies that mattered.
I used to think it was your wounds,
But your sins made you ill-
How murderous to love them still.

I sifted through what I thought I knew,
Through the ashes of your legacy,
I tried to know you
Calling your sin your lunacy
Because it’s crazy to deny reality.
Gentler to say you couldn’t love outside yourself,
Than that you wouldn’t love me.

All the tiny gestures
Overpowered by your refusals
Will I grow fangs?
You can be brutal
Especially when challenged
Your hatred burns in your eyes.
Is it my duty to eat your lies?

I’m gripped with sorrow
Over our scrapbook of farewells
And our hasty inscriptions
Still frames of ancient carousels
Frozen in snapshots:
It feels like you were never mine.
You had complaints; I had your crimes.

And after the last goodbye,
I won’t wish for more time.

And that’s a tragedy.