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Smoke Signals
She hasn't made my bed since I was nine,
but Mom insists today, and sets to work,
all brisk domestic competence. "I'm FINE,"
she signals with each linty billow-jerk
that spreads the sheets, suspending them in space.
"I'm FINE. I'm FINE." Her message will repeat
until the linens slither into place,
unwrinkled, well-distributed, and neat.
While telegraphing how she's in control,
she concentrates intently on the bed,
unconscious of the lint and dust that roll
in turbulent cartoon-clouds overhead.
From clear across the canyon of the room
I read the turmoil written in each plume.
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This is another tight, effective little narrative, with the focus on character this time. The situation suggests a relationship, and establishes the character of the mother, with gestures clear enough to be filmed, such as that "linty billow-jerk" that suggest speed and energy--too much of it to be justified by mere bed-making--and by the wonderful vocabulary of the sestet. That final cloud of dust--"cartoon-clouds overhead"--and the way the domestic landscape expands with that loaded word, "canyon," is marvelous. The poem ends on a threatening note, full of questions that negate the fierce repeated "FINE" of line 6, and leave the reader anxiously divided between mother and daugher--or is it son? But what I intuit is daughter.
Here again, as in "All I Need to Know," I'm grateful for the information I haven't been given.
~Rhina
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