Mother Was Not Smooth, a Sestina

By Stephanie Mesler

Mother was not smooth; she was not genteel.  

Mother was sharp, like a needle in the eye,

and blunt, like a butcher’s mallet.  

Born into a motherless home, she learned early to cope with solitude.  

Alone with a man who had not planned on raising any child, much less a daughter, 

She learned to love silence

Early morning darkness enveloped her in silence.  

Gowned evenings among the genteel, 

away from the home and daughter

that demanded more than just the mother’s watchful eye,

used up all of her sociability, stole her grace and made her seek solitude, 

wherever it could be found.  Her mornings, she guarded with a tone that crushed like a mallet,

“Why are you awake?  Go back to bed,” decreed the mallet.

Don’t you know this is mother’s alone time?  Silence!  

She sat on the sofa, smoking in the dark, surrounded in her solitude.  

Here, she was herself, for herself; bereft of the veneer of the genteel

politician artist preacher’s wife.  In her jaundiced eye,

There was no love for the home, the man, or the daughter.  

I was the invisible daughter -

she, who learned to avoid the mallet -

she, who was also a needle in the eye.

I moved from room to room, through pea soup silence,

cutting through the air, like the well mannered and genteel

cut through societal barriers and silence.  

I learned from the lonliest how to embrace solitude.

My own points got sharper and my tongue grew terse; I am my mother’s daughter,

in the end, so much more than my father’s - he valued the elegant genteel,

even as his own words cut to the bone and his fists crushed like a mallet.  

In a daughter, he valued only bragging rights and silence.  

I was to be evidence of his own value, proof that he could create what was first seen in his mind’s eye.  

Mother looked the other way when he punched me in the eye, 

an event that led to a full week’s solitude.  

I was condemned to missing school, unending silence 

at home, time for my wound to heal, so no one would look at me and see the daughter

of a monster and his mallet.  

I was captive to  that blinding veneer genteel.  

I have grown to be both sharp and smooth, the daughter

of a mallet, who is, myself, a blunt, hard, damaging, self-protective mallet.

I am also capable of gentle, gentlewomanly gentility.  I am needle Genteel.

Mother Was Not Smooth, a Sestina is © Stephanie Mesler 2023

The Prognosis

By Stephanie Mesler

When they say you might (or might not) die,

That you might just be miserable for the rest of your days,

but they can’t say how many days of misery you’ll get to enjoy,

you try on clairvoyance.  

Looking ahead, how far do you see?

Can you see another 25 years?  

How does the next decade look?

Can you see next year?

Next month?

Next week?

Are you sure of tomorrow?

When these questions cannot be answered,

when you look ahead and see nothing at all,

you get philosophical.

No one ever knows which day will be their last, do they?

Shouldn’t we all live our todays like they might be our last days?  

You decide to assume tomorrow may not come again;

You act like you have nothing to lose

And, before you know it, you have built the life you always wanted,

A life you really don’t want to lose.  

And that’s when it happens.  

The Prognosis is © Stephanie Mesler 2019

Moot Goodbye

I used to believe I would say goodbye.
I would stand before you, an equal, unafraid -
and tell you that I forgive what I could not tolerate.
But the day never came.

You died, bullying to the last, surrounded by strangers paid to tolerate your vituperation.
Somehow I knew you were gone, though no one bothered to make the call.
Googled the proof; seeing is believing.
Confirmation stunned me for a day before grief descended.

I wasn’t sad you are gone; that was a relief.
I was sad I never got to play out that scene I had imagined,
The one where I stand before you and say goodbye,
The one where I am stronger than you,
The one that gives me the upper hand.

I was sad that the Daddy I loved was not to be trusted,
That the relationship I imagined was never real.
I was sad for the childhood you destroyed
And the fear you built in me that I carry with me still.

I am sad for the love you gave up when you drove me away,
Sad that you were on your own at the end, among people who had no stake in your redemption.
I am sad for what made you what you were;
You were a victim first and a monster second.

I wish your life could have been different,

So that my life could have been different.

Goodbye.


Moot Goodbye is © Stephanie Mesler 2021

Golden Mourning

 

Golden Mourning was created as part of a Writing Workshop in Second Life.
The prompt was this picture from Debra Kelly Makeup Pinterest page.

Golden Mourning

by Stephanie Mesler

The sun invades too early, changing sterile white to blinding gold.

My own pale hands, yellowed in this light --

The spot next to me vacant a year to the day,

loss ferments in my gut, so much virulent anguish.

How to commemorate the day that dares to start with saffron glory

when it should have been the day the world ends?

I have prepared to face this day assuming it would rain,

that the sky would be black with clouds and the streets filled with dirty water.  

But here I stand, looking out the window toward the hill where you are buried,  

naked except for this unnatural auric glaze.

© 2021 Stephanie Mesler

Coming Full Circle

Written July 6, 2015

Coming Full Circle

By Stephanie Mesler

There are constellations I would not see and cries I would not hear,

had I not learned to live with my insides always turned out, 

exposed and bleeding, open

to life and experience, to knowledge and pain and joy and fury.

You made me who I am.  

Sometimes, I think that’s a good thing.

You were the daddy who built swings and filled my sandbox.  

You tied my rubber raft with rope so I could not drift into waters above my head.  

You made a chicken wire playpen, so that I could crawl on lush bluegrass 

while you read the world’s great books, sometimes out loud, 

and sang me opera and spirituals and talked with passersby.

You were the unpredictable dad, who sometimes went AWOL,

who was quick to rage, impossible to please.  

Sometimes, you hit.  Often, you bullied.  

You were competitive for me 

and against me.

You were the father everyone envied

because I did not tell them what might have made you look less than…

I tried to be one of your accomplishments

It was never enough.

You did not love 

the daughter,

the girl,

the child who could not be molded in your image

I tried to get it right,

dated men like you,

men you mostly hated.  

You saw yourself in them and could not look in the mirror without flinching.

That is, I suppose, a sign of...something.  

Through the decades of my life

I have fallen again and again into the trap of happy memory,

allowed the danger of relationship to be outweighed by shimmering, gooey, optimism.

Last time ‘round, I said I was done, and I am.

Now, we do not speak --

having hit a wall too high for me to climb again 

(I’m not young anymore myself, you know)

I slammed a door shut behind me so that you can never again walk through uninvited.

When I think of you, it is mostly in shades of yellow and blue, happy thoughts that tell half the tale:

the Christmas of 100 books,

singing together from a balcony,

watching live ballet,

the way you cooked white fish in red sauce when Mom was away,

how we made up fantastic stories about complete strangers to pass the time on long trips.  

I remember the charm and humor, the intellect and art.  

There are dreams I would not have,

stories I could not tell, 

songs I could not sing,

had it not been you Mother chose, though no one will ever know why she did.

You will be dead soon.

For better or for worse, that will bring relief.

Then, I will dispel the somber murk of darker memory and 

create a vast and glowing void to be refilled with more of what made you Daddy.  

In my fantasy, it is safe to be your child,

safe to open the door one last time before it’s too late,

safe to say goodbye, face to face.  

I will one day write that scene, though it will never happen.

I will give myself the gift of coming full circle.  

© Stephanie Mesler 2015

Black Bird January 7. 2021

Black Bird January 7. 2021

By Stephanie Mesler

Black Bird, I see you there,

alone on the tip-toppiest branch of the barest tree,

just the other side of the building across the pool from where I sit, 

eating my breakfast in silence,

trying not to disturb others isolated in this time and place with me,

waiting for the contagion to pass,

for covid-19 to take its leave.  

Husband growls almost inaudibly at his work computer.

Daughter studies.  

Dog and cat sleep at opposite ends of the couch in determined ignorance of one another’s presence.  

I don’t mind the quiet; This day, I relish it.  

It is the morning after the almost-coup.  

I am emotionally and physically drained.  

I hunger for silence; in it, there is peace.  

I see you there, Black Bird.  

You wait.. Listening…

Wind gently shifting the bare branches around you.  

Somehow, you are still and solid, unmoved,

there on that  tip-toppiest branch.  

You are strength.  

You are peace.  

© Stephanie Mesler 2021

New Poem: Election Day Eve 2020

 Election Day Eve 2020

by Stephanie Mesler

He commands an army of duds with nothing better to do and nothing much to lose.

They fly his machismo flag over their trucks with big dicks.

They stop traffic and make noise, demanding attention - 

dateless boys who can't get a girl into the backseat without threats or bribes or both.  

They're proud now,  their king is proof that human shit can be shitty and still bask in glory.

They shout for a while and laugh -- they think they own the road and that's enough for the moment, owning the road is proof they can own the world.

But no one pays attention to toddlers stamping their feet

Traffic backs away or goes around them, spinning gravel, ignoring their tantrum.

They are alone with just each other and their combined insecurities.

They have no binkies and no blankies.  

They are cold and hungry and afraid.  

They go home to bed without any cookies.

Perhaps tomorrow they will grow up.

Election Day Eve 2020 is © 2020 Stephanie Mesler