This poem can be found in the March 2019 edition of Poetry Magazine.
Maybe my most important identity is being a son
my mother
asking how
to open a tab
on her laptop,
to email a photo,
calling to ask–
can you change
the lightbulb
at the top of the stairs?
my mother
spending hours
helping me find
a doctor’s form,
a hearing aid battery,
anything
misplaced, my mother
who keeps leaving
her keys in the doors
or on the walls,
who keeps saying
I might have to change
the locks, mother
of self-sufficiency,
of beads and trolleys,
of handlebars,
short-tempered
spiteful mother,
mother of resistance,
licorice and seaweed
on the table,
lonely mother,
mother needs-no-man,
mother deserves my cooking,
deserves a long sleep,
a cuppa tea, a garden
of lavender mothers,
all her heads up,
mother’s tooth
falls out, mother
dyes her hair,
don’t say graying
say sea salt
and cream, remedy,
immortal mother.
You can find the poetry of Raymond Antrobus in the collection To Sweeten Bitter.
Life of Kim 