Mother did not die of suicide.
That summer in 1979 my son, a few months old— Mother called me down.
I came up the elevator baby in his carry-cot, all those floors
to find Mother— wood door to the hall open hunched over in her living room.
Sliding glass to the balcony open— mother wailing,
I put the baby down. He woke with Mother’s noise,
and she said I didn’t even have the courage to jump
I went over, closed the glass door. I had no idea what to say.
My son’s face— wakeful eyes. Silent.
fictive kinship
long ago, in Anthropology class
I heard the term ‘fictive kinship’
two thoughts erupted 1) how rude, Coyote is too my grandfather, and 2) oooh, what a good way to describe my mother.
Of course that’s not what the term meant, but it gives you the flavour of those years.
rules for raising offspring
Badger taught me how to mother, to be a daughter, too. In the first dream, she invited me in— that’s all—turns out being invited is everything.
Dream-time badger lived in a cedar tree, tall, with a cavern in its trunk full of yellow light that made the tree’s heart a home. I clambered in.
At seven years old or so.
When I was old enough, a wake-time badger noticed me near her burrow, at the edge of her meadow, astride a lolling root from a giant oak.
Good mother that she was, just let me sit, watch as she trundled over last year’s fallen acorns, her larder— waddled after cubs that went too far to eat the acorns, dragged cubs back— one after the other, then again, and again—a badger dance called curiosity—music younglings were just starting to hear.
And my kids—that’s what I did let them go, dragged them back.
Carol Shillibeer’s poems have been published in many print and online publications, and received nominations for both Pushcart and Best of Net. Her most recent book Lune /-/ aria was released under the name Pearl Button by Dancing Girl Press.