Mom’s Day

(x = space)

x

x

Mom’s Day

x

When she was alive

And I had friends on campus

I got notes from her

From time to time

And a card on Mother’s Day

Sometimes for Father’s Day

She could get confused

She was a cat

Who when sick

Or when we were moving

I brought to my office

To let her sleep under the desk

Or rub my face

When I was working

As was her way

x

And to make friends of peers

Students

Even the cleaning staff

Who were friendly people

So was she

She couldn’t be a mother

But she let me

From time to time

Be a mother

(also a father, keeper, friend, target)

And sent me notes and cards

For Mom’s Day

And other reasons

When I was on campus

And had friends there

While she was a good friend

A cat-child

In all places

x

x

happy Mom’s Day to all moms

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C L Couch

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Photo by Valeria Zoncoll on Unsplash

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In My Father’s Now-and-Then Kitchen

(x = space)

x

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In My Father’s Now-and-Then Kitchen

(and backyard)

x

My father could cook many things

Well, six things

The rest were disasters

Like shipwrecks on rocks

On waiting shores

x

He could make—combine,

Stir, apply, bake—apple pie

He taught me how to have

Cheddar cheese with that

x

He could make blackberry cobbler

Blackberries, maybe, because of

Growing up

In Olympia

Where there were

Berry trees and bushes in abundance

Real crust (back to the cobbler)

Made from many ingredients

The right amount of sweet and salt

To savor

x

He could make bean soup

Ham and bone kept from another meal

Beans soaked for days

It seems

He might have made the cornbread

That came with it

Maybe my mom made that

x

Have I got to six?

Well, he could grill adept

If maybe nothing challenging

The usual suburban fare

Meat and vegetables

I’m a plebe

I like hamburgers

I was satisfied

x

My mother cooked everything else

Too bad you can’t taste

Her corned beef with cabbage

Carrots and potatoes

With the cornbread

(Southern)

That she made

x

I can’t taste it anymore

For many years

Except to remember

I’ve found nothing close to hers

In waking time,

Since

Sigh

x

What else my father cooked

Was awful

(shapeless shapes

on plates)

He was the only one

To eat those things

He made

x

C L Couch

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Photo by Daniel Gamez on Unsplash

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Horde

(x = space)

x

x

Horde

x

Today is my mother’s birthday

She would be in her nineties, now

She died in her fifties

Cancer got her

Got inside my father, too

Is inside my brother

x

I could swear, but calling it

A bastard doesn’t matter

Cancer doesn’t care

It simply comes to cells and changes

Them so that they’re not good

Anymore

Like turning faithful into infidels

Except, again, cancer isn’t interested

x

As far as we know

It has no soul

It simply ruins everything

And we can’t cure it yet

Though there are treatments

x

Hard, difficult,

Life-changing treatments

Not like quinine (vitamin C) for scurvy

Not like the shots

That kept and keep

Polio and small pox away

Cancer treatments are harsh and

Guarantee nothing

The cancer might not go away

It might go away

And then come back

Survivors have success stories

But we are so far from

Eradication

x

We should include a clause in every

Contract, every negotiation

Domestic, international

A commitment to take part

In eliminating

Cancer

With ongoing maintenance,

A best and last campaign

Into whatever hell

Is fit for plagues

x

C L Couch

x

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Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

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Dream Over

(x = over)

x

x

Dream Over

x

I dreamed

About my brother

Last night

Then my sister

And my mother

Who was sick

x

I tried to get ready

Asked my sibs to help

They would

(they did)

I tried to fix things up

As best I could

Then went to work

Where I was testy

With the people

There

x

Dream over

I woke up

And feel tense

Old long since

x

C L Couch

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Photo by thamara prada on Unsplash

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Modranicht

(x = space)

x

x

Modranicht

x

Maybe I need a break

Go somewhere

Look at lights that others

Have put up

Phantom merrymaking

On my part

No, wait, they were put up

For me and others like me

To go by

To gaze at from afar

Appreciate the rainbow lights

Against the snow,

If snow,

Against the dark

Of night

Of loneliness

Of season’s night

Of season’s loneliness

That say, we’re here

And some of us

Are here for you

x

C L Couch

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x

Modranicht, Night of the Mothers (a Yule celebration, now Christmas Eve)

x

Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

Ilkley, United Kingdom

x

Partial Recall

(x = space)

x

x

Partial Recall

x

How many things I’ve missed

In the last few days

The Lunar New Year

Valentine’s

The birthday of my mother

She died thirty-eight years ago

Shrove Tuesday

Ash Wednesday

Diagnoses take their toll

x

Today the rover Perseverance

Lands on Mars

I should see and hear that

And all the other days

Will have gone by

Love in the time of plague

To contemplate while waiting

In her office

x

We go on

We sigh, we breathe

We go somewhere

Where there is no breath

Unless we bring it with us

Then we craft it

Inside something like

New wineskins

x

C L Couch

(2/18/2021)

x

x

Photo by Lucas Myers on Unsplash

Cinder Cone, United States

x

The Village Maker

(x = space)

x

x

The Village Maker

x

Around the Christmas tree,

My mother used to arrange

A winter’s village

x

We knew it was winter

Because a sheet had been

Wrapped around

The base and all,

The buildings set inside the folds

x

There were houses,

Naturally, most with

Peaked roofs though

There was one house top

That was crenellated

x

Cardboard walls (and roofs)

Had been painted somehow

In manufacturing

With coats of glitter

x

There was a church with

Paper stained-glass windows

x

There were people

Plastic or metal

I’m not sure,

Walking through town

x

There might have been a bench

For one or two to sit upon

x

There were people, I believe,

Set in a one-horse sleigh

x

There was a pond for ice

And skating, and there were

Ice-skaters there

x

The pond was a small mirror

x

I thought that was so clever

Of my mother

x

There were holes in the backs

Of the houses and

The church,

Through which light bulbs

Were pressed and a wire,

All connected so that when

The tree was lit, the

Village was illuminated, too

x

C L Couch

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Photo by Gard Skaar Johansen on Unsplash

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Anna Pauline McAnally Couch

Anna Pauline McAnally Couch

(15 February 1925—13 June 1983)

 

The day after red and white

And pink

It is the ides of February

My mother’s birthday

Pauline was born in 1925,

Died in 1983

Only in her fifties

Such is the ravaging of cancer

I wish she’d had a better life

She was a singer

I wish she could have sung more

A manager, I wish she could have

Run things more her way

I wish she’d had a partnership

Rather than passive and aggressive,

Which she enabled

And then both of them

Passed it on to me

Before the term

Before its time

I don’t remember the real name now

But she knew Doris Day

Before she was Day

My mother was a Southerner

But had no trace of accent

I’m not sure why

Except maybe it was cultured, then

Not to give away

The humble origins

And hers were humble

To the point of terrible

Orphaned of her father

Let go by her mother

Saved by Methodists somehow

I have the picturesque baptism paper

Moved or was moved

From small-town Tennessee to Cincinnati

Set in two states

(for all intents and purposes),

Both sides of the river

 

I was her middle child

Maybe it’s fair or at least

Mathematical that I should do

Some chronicling

On her behalf

On this, what would be

What is

Her ninety-fifth birthday

Born in Shelbyville, Tennessee

Died in Cincinnati, Ohio

Lives in heaven

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Gary Bendig on Unsplash

she liked rabbits

 

How Fast a Dream Fades

How Fast a Dream Fades

 

There was something

It was Christmastime

I was arguing with my mother

Over singing music I didn’t know

We went to church

Tim Breithaupt was there

He pointed toward a casino

On the hill

I said we have those, too

(casinos not hills, though we

have hills)

There’s not much more

And there was more

I feel sad about it

I was angry in the dream

I cannot argue with her, now

 

C L Couch

 

 

Tom Barrett

@wistomsin

This photo is taken from my flight to Panama. We flew directly through a storm, and this is what I captured.

Unsplash