Martha Ellen

Warriors

Abandoned to fend for 

themselves unwanted

unseen beggars homeless 

sleeping under an overpass 

or in an old appliance

box. Our warriors.

acrobat

circus acrobat

was my grandfather 

with his cane

hobbling to the

mailbox fearing

no check this month

Shhhhhhhhhh

     And in my imagination I am strong. I see her suffering at last and hold her in compassion. I tell her. “Mommy I’m so sorry the patriarchy demanded your total submission, robbed you of the creative person you were meant to be, turned your lightheartedness into viscous darkness, placed you in a small cage with iron bars from which you could never escape, a barren enclosure restricting movements even preventing your ability to stand erect. From behind the bars you pace and growl. You scramble for the crumbs the jailer tosses your way when he remembers to feed you anything after he has had his fill knowing if you starved to death he would be deprived of your soul to feed upon. In impotent rage and desperation you claw at nothing through the bars. You can only lash out in rage at the injustice forced upon you. Mommy, I understand.”

     Instead of coming together comforting each other in love and forgiveness because you know I finally understand and you love me, too. Instead you come at me with a ferociousness I had not seen before nor could have anticipated. You defend the patriarchy with everything that is you. You hate me with every fiber of your being for daring to question your whole truth without which you would cease to exist. And then I remembered. Women perform genital mutilations; women  bound the feet of young girls. My mother was only following orders. Surviving. Ensuring my survival.

     [shhhhhhhhhh I remember your little rebellions spoken only to me in whispers. “I make more than Daddy.” You were shamed and awed. “My name does not start with ‘D’!” as you swatted at an envelope addressed to Mrs. D. Carley And you gave me a copy of the 1815 police report about your Oma and mine. Your cousin Eddie went to Ghent to retrieve it. When you were researching our family tree you could only follow the paternal line. Dad invalidated yours as dead-ended with “that foundling.” In secret we shared things from your family line.“Foreign” anchovies from a large jar we nibbled sitting on the kitchen floor; smoked eel and pickled herring. We sipped in silent communion the last of your father’s homemade wine, the wine he made in Flemish crocks in the basement of your childhood home from the grapes you harvested from the backyard grape arbor.  There was the tiny rosary in the small blue glass Bible case you tucked into my underwear drawer and no one knew. Little braveries I remember.]

     Your name was Elise Americanized to Alice. You have deep family roots. Dad pulled them up with casual violence and discarded them as though they were weeds. He mocked and denigrated Catholics to your face. “Nuns never get none.” It hurt and angered. You smiled in deference to his authority. You could have provided for yourself. You had the intellect and the drive diminished into the constricted role he called “housewife” you elevated and reclaimed as the less servile, more creative, “homemaker.”

      When you were dying he sat with me alone in my living room. It was the only time I ever saw him weep. “I gotta have ma.” 

     [Mommy, they always need us more than we need them.]