Abstruse

[ellajam]

Hi, 71, I like this a lot and really have no issue with anything here.

I like the opening, it evokes the depressed half-believer who doesn't have faith in heaven to balance out fear of hell. The sharp pins in her hair stop me every time, but I've come to read it as someone who doesn't allow the comfort of even the stroking of her hair. For me the blind cry is reflex fear of coming awake in discomfort. I like the list of what she chooses to dwell on, and the moving van. The ending for me reinforces the separation she feels from everything, even her own children.

So, no quarrel from me today.

Mother was afraid
she might go to hell;
never a real believer,
she faced mornings
like she faced father,
with sharp pins in her hair.
Sleep spoke a language
she refused to believe;
often awake in the middle
of the night, a blind cry
away from morning,
thinking about her old dishes,
her worn towels, shoes
she wanted but could not afford —
she dreamed a moving van
would save her; other nights
she dreamed her children’s faces
stared down at her from great heights.