Judy Wells Poet

Berkeley, CA
jwellspoet@att.net

Call Home, 2005

MY MOTHER'S BED

I was lying

on my mother's bed

in her Board and Care.

It's an intimate proposition.

She spends

most of her time there

at age 92.

We were talking about this and that

when suddenly she began to

laugh and laugh.

"I was thinking how you said,

'Mither, I want me mush,'

when you were little," she said

and she laughed and laughed.

Of course, the Zoloft

was working grand miracles on her humor

but as always, I probed further.

"How did I get that phrase?" I asked.

And she waved her hand

above her head as she always did

indicating I was a miniature Bridie Murphy

with an Irish brogue

from my ancient past or from the stars.

But I persisted, "What did you call

your Irish mother?"

"Mama, always Mama," she said.

"And we never had mush.

We had toast."

Somehow, I always think

I'm going to catch her

and she'll let out

how her Irish grandmother

said "Mither" or "me mush"

but she never does.

It's always a wave of the hand

and now that laughter.

For my own part

I now say

"Mither, I want me mush"

was my first line of poetry.

It alliterates so well

and it's got a fine rhythm.

O.K., so I was Bridie McRory

in another life.

Write it in my bio--

That's fine with me.

The Wells Family: from left to right, Buddy, Judy, Nancy, and Mimi. Martinez, California in their new winter coats made by their Mother. Photo by Mel Wells, Sr.

THE WIND AND MY GRIEF

The wind and my grief

are one

The windows bang--

So my grief collides

in my heart

A wound so strong

I kneel to my sorrow

Singing god of grief--

The moon, that great

cliché in the sky,

is the brightest it's been

in an eternity--

My life

while my mother's

turns on a wheel

nearing its endless

wheel

Why are there no stars

tonight?

Has the wind vanquished

them all

as it rattles my windows

my mother's lungs

her heart

My heart bangs with grief

poor window

poor widow

of the night

IN HER HOUSE

It was as if

I had entered a mystery novel

or the scene

of an alien abduction.

My mother was gone

but the house was frozen

in the fashion she had left it

eight months ago.

I had not been able to return

till now.

There was her correspondence

lined up on the dining room table.

There was her comb

in her dressing room

still filled with gray hair.

There were her shirts

lined up in the closet.

There was her white cup and saucer

dotted with green shamrocks

sitting on her sink--

the one I brought her from Ireland.

There were our names---

Melinda, Nancy, Judy, Mel--

and our phone numbers

on the coffee table near her couch

where she took ill

and called my brother.

Everything is there

in the house,

and she left it forever.

When I returned to my home in Berkeley,

I thought,

what if Dale and I

were suddenly gone from our place,

and everything was left as is--

frozen--

I could go no further,

knowing we have gone abroad

at times

and felt freed from our stuff.

We could have formed a new life

without it

but who would clean up our place?

I must begin to clean

my mother's place.

In her house,

I have already found

my sophomore high school binder

with an English essay about my mother,

graduation diplomas

from St. Catherine's grammar school on,

my old stuffed Scottie dog MacTavish

that my nephew plucked to the nub,

my teenage orthodontic retainers,

and a plaster cast of my overbite!

O my God!

It will be harder

to clean up my past

than my mother's.

She says "I've left all that behind"

but I know

I will examine

each object of my past,

fitting the jigsaw puzzle

of my writer's life together

with fragments of my childhood.

Website designed by Jannie M. Dresser.

Web Hosting by Turbify

Berkeley, CA
jwellspoet@att.net