Roe vs Wade Series | Poetry | Lorrain Caputo

Hope II by Gustav Klimt (source: Wiki Commons)

I AM A MOTHER

—for our mothers & our mothers’

mothers & their mothers & theirs . . .

 

I am a girl, seventeen, a high-school force-out

I am now a wife

I will be a mother

 

Am I African-American

or Native American?

Am I Latina

or Appalachian?

Am I native-born

or immigrant?

 

Does it matter?

 

We are migrants to the city, in search of work

Here we have no family—only your cousin once-removed

I scrub rich people’s floors, my knees roughened & reddened

my womb heavy again

 

I fall & lose those twins

 

&you want to know

Am I

or am I?

Am I

or am I?

Am I

or am I?

Does it matter?

 

I am a mother of one two & now three

There is no birth control I can use

There is no money for the doctors who will tell me

I am a wife

 

I am a wife . . .

. . . of a drinking man

 

Am I

or am I?

Am I

or am I?

Am I

or am I?

Does it matter?

 

 

I work as a check-out clerk

I am a wife—unhappy

I am a lover—of a married man

 

I am pregnant—again

I am a wife—abandoned

four kids, no education, no support

 

I am a mother

There’s the rent to pay, a house to heat in these cold winters

There’s four kids to feed what little I can

The littlest faints from hunger in her classroom

My son is ill

There’s no money—

my lover the marries man gives what little he can

There’s no birth control I can take

There’s no money for the doctors who will tell me

 

WHAT?

 

I am an abandoned wife

I am the lover of—& yes, he beats me

I am pregnant again

I have four kids

I work two jobs, still clerking with a forced smile

&scraping grease from fast food grills

I have no choice

 

& I am pregnant again

. . . Again I visit . . .

I am pregnant yet again

. . . that back alley . . .

 

It’s almost Easter

. . . I help another woman . . .

The snow is heavy on the ground

. . . who is pregnant again . . .

The pussy willow buds are soft

. . . to that alley . . .

My girls will have patent leather Mary Janes

&my son Thom McAns

&they will have new dresses, a new vest & pants

&this year real baskets with chocolate bunnies

&marshmallow eggs nested in cellophane grass

 

Am I

or am I?

Am I

or am I?

Am I

or am I?

Does it matter?

 

I am tired, I am stressed—I beat my kids

I am scared—I drink

I am so frightened—please don’t let them ever find . . .

. . . don’t let them ever take my kids away

I am alone

in the growing mounds of bills

in the laughter, sobs & screams

of five       & quickly six       kids

 

I still work

. . . Hey kids, I whisper into the phone

ringing up a cash register

. . . the boss is gone, come quick . . .

I still work

. . . take this       & that

with a forced smile

. . . & a little treat for you, too . . .

filling people’s orders

At night my legs ache from my veins gone bad

&my mind wondering how . . . how

 

&yet the bills grow like my six kids

 

I still have my lover who’s still married

&this one       & that one

&one who will even bring a cake for the children

 

What must I do

to feed my children?

What must I do

to get the medicines for my son?

What must I do

to give them shelter?

 

Do you want me to confess my sins?

 

Then I will

 

Forgive me, father, for I have sinned

I have loved

I have committed adultery, laying with another woman’s man

I have given birth to bastard children

Forgive me for I have tore three lives from my womb

 

Forgive me for

I have stolen from my master to feed my children

I have laid with other men to clothe my children

I have lied & cheated to take care of these children

 

Forgive me, father, for I have sinned

I have sinned for these children you see before you

Forgive me . . . Forgive me

 

Damn it, father

I am tired

I am tired of scrubbing rich people’s floors

I am tired of scrubbing their toilets

I am tired of picking rich people’s hairs from their seats

&my teeth

 

I am just flat-out tired damn it

 

& I see that question, father, in your eyes

set in a face of contempt

 

Am I from the hills

or from the hood?

Am I from the rez

or from the barrio?

Am I from the island

or from the moon?

 

Does it matter?

 

Damn it

I am a Mother