Are You My Mother

 

Are You My Mother?

 

They are already in the circle when I come in.

I spot her right off, tucked between two old ladies –

one’s perplexed gaze wandering the room, the other,

lost in another dimension. And Mom, alert, attentive, like

a well-behaved student awaiting the start of class.

 

An aide sidles up to me.

That’s my mother. I say her name.

She won’t know me. I just want to see her.

To watch for a while. Please. Don’t. Say. Anything.

It will upset her. (And me).

 

I sit beside an old nun; she reaches over and takes

my hand. Center stage, a different aide explains

the Plan for the Day. The one I spoke to, not

a moment ago, taps Mom’s shoulder from behind

and points. Loud whisper: That’s your daughter.

 

I cringe. At the words, the confused look on my mother’s

face, the white-hot pain searing my heart. All eyes on me

now – curious, suspicious. In this alternate dimension,

where long ago is the present, and the present is soon forgotten,

daughters are four-feet tall and eight years old.

 

When I was small, Mummy read aloud, Are You My Mother?

In which, the baby bird, fallen from the nest, wanders off,

asking this question of everyone it meets. Now Mom stares

at me intently, brow furrowed. My cheeks burn; pleading eyes ask,

Are you my mother?

 

She flashes a polite, awkward smile, like one you’d give

someone who accidentally bumped you, to show

there are no hard feelings, shakes her head and says,

just like the animals in the story,

I am not your mother.

 

I throw murderous eyes at the aide and force

a smile filled with gritted teeth. My voice piercing

the stillness sounds high and hollow:

Don’t mind her. She’s got it wrong.

Mercifully, someone asks, What’s for lunch?

 

The grace of short memory spans –

they all lose interest in me, and fast.

Shepherd’s Pie, the aide says.

Someone: What’s that?

The aide’s mouth opens, but

 

Mom’s voice is already in the air:

You don’t know what Shepherd’s Pie is?

I choke back a laugh. Now that sounds

like my mother.

Let me tell her!

 

And then, my mother, who does not know

that it’s fall, or that we’ve sold the house, or

that Daddy is just across the way in long-term care,

or that she once sailed down the Nile past

the Valley of the Kings, who does not know

 

that she is the mother of the gray-haired

woman sitting beside the nun, explains,

in a clear and dearly familiar voice,

and in exquisite detail, how to make

a Shepherd’s Pie.