…For Children Of…
Margo Berdeshevsky
His, a sloth, hers, a rattlesnake — these are their dead
mothers’ bodies — in the avid tongue of irony.
My world is too dry eyed, it flies with charred
pelicans, with long beaked mice.
My own mama was kinder than a rattler, dying so
desperate for applause
she spilled from her chair
in the most famous
restaurant on Broadway —
to stillness.
Before that — she crawled.
Her belly gold with brandy and tarnished
bravura. Before that — she had a daughter;
ironic; she’d have been so proud
of her blonde
spouting fountains in a distant iron light,
never mind the silent tin roof, its stinted
clapping.
Never mind, daughter of — or son, he smiled,
of sloth —
never mind, when iron breaks—–it’s rust
before it bows. ( A difference between us.)
Still, there are costly coins—–for our mothers’ eyes
And costly
union. So human : our body. Shedding our used,
intrepid skins.
Margo Berdeshevsky, NYC born, writes now in Paris. Her newest book is “Kneel Said the Night (a hybrid book in half-notes) from Sundress Publications. Forthcoming: It Is Still Beautiful To Hear The Heart Beat from Salmon-Poetry. Author too of Before The Drought /Glass-Lyre-Press (finalist for National Poetry-Series;) Between Soul & Stone and But a Passage in Wilderness / Sheep-Meadow-Press; and Beautiful Soon Enough /FC2 /recipient of 1st Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Award. Other honors: Grand prize for Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Award, and the Robert H. Winner Award from Poetry Society of America. Widely published in international journals, kindly see her website: http://margoberdeshevsky.com
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