the national poetry month issue || for my mother
TRANSCRIPT
University of Northern Iowa
For My MotherAuthor(s): SUSAN NORRISSource: The North American Review, Vol. 293, No. 2, The National Poetry Month Issue(MARCH-APRIL 2008), p. 11Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41220223 .
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NAR
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ZEBULON HUSET
Cabo San Lucas, 2007: A Double Abecedarian
After we surfed the Sea of Cortez, but before we limped slowly, culled by beating wave's uneven syntax down the empty beach, we eschew every bottle we'd drained like an IV from the bloodline of ecstasy. You, giddy on our first international tryst, hanging from my arm, beaming lusťs imagination as you whisper jokes about my below-the-belt IQ. Kicking sand trapped by sandals up little stone steps as the ocean nods no more excessive human interaction. No more tequila or rum. Only the texture of backs pressed on gravel, pressed and re-pressed under the sky's stark quilt, finger softly tracing the initial J, retracing mirror constellations on freckles, I smelled our day on your leg, thigh, tasted the ocean, your lips singing under your breath a staccato riff, virtual symphony of this moment in time where we tended to wend xenophobic you, me, reveling in the wonderful, isolated bulb, zen of our very own temporary Arcadia.
SUSAN NORRIS
For My Mother
When my hands were still dimpled and smooth, I loved to sit in your lap, run my hands over yours, feel the ridges of your veins, the knuckles. / want mine to be like that I said. What I meant was lean, sculpted, blue- defined. And you said, These old hands? You don't want these. You were in your 30s.
60 years later, just last week we sat across from each other in a dim-lit bar, you who had always disapproved of drinking but friends of ours were playing, doing 60s stuff, Neil Young, Beatles, Janis Joplin. The live music made it hard to talk so we mostly watched people, sipped our wine.
They took requests and when they began / Want to Hold Your Hand, I reached across put my hands on yours lying small and ringless on the table. They felt cold, freckled parchment, rivered below by ribbons of blue and I patted them
and sang along and I think you thought I was drunk but I kept it up and before it was over, one foot of yours was keeping time under the table and you were young again and I was younger still.
March-April 2008 NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW 11
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