Patience of the sort my
mother
practiced on my father
(which in his self-
absorption he mistook
for tribute though it was in
fact
a species of rage--didn't he
ever wonder why he was
so blocked in expressing
his native abandon?): it
infected
my childhood. Patiently
she fed me; patiently
she supervised the kindly
slaves who attended me,
regardless
of my behavior, an assumption
I tested with increasing
violence. It seemed clear to
me
that from her perspective
I didn't exist, since
my actions had
no power to disturb her: I
was
the envy of my playmates.
In the decades that followed
I was proud of my father
for staying away
even if he stayed away for
the wrong reasons;
I used to smile
when my mother wept.
I hope now she could
forgive that cruelty; I hope
she understood how like
her own coldness it was,
a means of remaining
separate from what
one loves deeply.
