My Mother and I

by Angeline Montauban

My mother and I danced
barefoot on the kitchen floor,
we shook our breasts and hips
our nappy hair to
Ella Fitzgerald.

Every night we slept under each
other’s arms.  I was attached to the scent
she possessed that made me sage and pure.
She liked the way my skin glowed in the dark,
I wished I had her eyes.

She grew sick and vulnerable.
She stopped smiling!  Maybe she hated being
in her fifties or she got tired of me?
She grew indifferent; I felt unattached.
One night I read “Do not go gentle into
that good night” She begged me not to cry.

I spent the night staring at her bloody
underwear, the red dress she adored,
the portrait of Grandfather, she drew.
Two months later she died!

After her death I left
I went to Paris and dated guys
who drove me suicidally wild.
It took me a long time to go home.