THREE POEMS by Catherine Anderson

Talk Well to Others

“Breathe to stand well, talk well, be well. On this point everyone agrees,

Cultists, faddist and physicians.”

from Take a Deep Breath –Reader’s Digest 1946

 

Well I talk well to others

to my students

to their mothers

to the crossing guard

and the neighbors.

I talk well to the seeds,

their first leaves

the growing plants

and shade trees.

I talk well to the birds at the feeder,

and the stray cat when she lets me feed her.

I once talked well to lovers

before, during and after.

I talk well to the dead-the shivering

shimmering ghost on the edge of my bed.

I talk well to my mother in my heart

If not my head.

I talk well to others,

I believe all would agree.

and when I get a chance to see her-

It has been suggested

that I talk well to me.

 

 

Done

Mom’s been sick

for ten years-

mute and done-

but for the brown

box of her words

left on my step

by her first born (son).

“Glad she left these

for you and not for me.”

(Or was he?)

Is all that was said

and done

as he set it

down

turned ‘round

and sped

out of town.

A trough of words

all meant for me

some bound,

some kind of free

that no one else

was meant to see.

All this pain

just stored up

for me.

Pained words on the floor

Pain in the sea

Pain from a belt

(she was not yet three)

Pained to be a mom

Pain as one man’s

bit on the side

Pain as the wife

with the truth she hides

Pain from the pen

Pain from the doubt

Pains that took root

Pain pruned

and tossed

in the earth

of a big

brown crate.

I hate the things

she did not say

(more than the things

she did).

I am more

like her or she was

just like me

Is it too late

to go back

or is it too soon

to pray that we

are both our own

line by line

kind of

free.

 

 

My failure/Be Patient

I’m afraid to run dry                                                   always on empty, and programmed

to fail you for not holding                                         back self-loathing beaten in to me when I was

a little                                                                            thing, running around the kitchen table fending

for myself.                                                                    Fending off my father’s fear of my failure.

 

Be patient if I close the door.                                   It is not where I want to hide

In darkness                                                                  under cover with lover after lover

I cultivate the seeds                                                   with diseased infidelity

waiting atrophied                                                       smothering myself in the sheets to keep

from scattering                                                           from disappearing

Indiscriminately.                                                        Indefinitely.

-Maryse Haan Anderson                                         -Catherine Maryse Anderson

*The above is an excerpt from the poet’s mother’s untitled poem from 1979, and the poet’s response to it. The poem comes from the crate alluded to above. This is one of several poems in a larger collection of a collaborative chapbook currently searching for the right home.