Natasha King

ten sudden rainstorms make me think of my mother

one:

                        drops spun at me from the sky,
my mother splashing me in the tub, her fingertips on my scalp, her arms wet to the elbow
I'm covered in suds, I puff out my small belly to make an island in the lukewarm sea
                        dancing under the
whirl of water, under the heavens, here, I am:
                                                                         me

            

two:

            the wind rises, rain flung
                        down, as if in anger,
                        her voice her words it's her it's her it's me it's me my deeds my sins my
            dirty laundry left scattered on the floor my dinner left unfinished my voice
                        too disobedient too dissident too disappointing me you're disappointing me

 

three:

                                                                                    dust dampened to mud
                                                                                                 under my soles
it's me in my room in the corner afraid because look what I've done and I'm waiting for her to
come in with a wooden spoon and a mouth set like steel and harsh words like pounding hail
and it was only
            years later she told me            
            half laughing
            half guilty                   that it was hard for her           to keep a straight face

 

four:

             the mustiness of the air, jade-green and jade-grey and jade-brown,
she could sit on her haunches for hours and cut stems and spade up earth in little piles planting
her plants and              me narrow like twigs playing nearby and making little piles
of flowers and mulch and
look there's an earwig if you're bad then one will crawl in your ear and
             lay eggs there so be
                                                  good

 

five:

the crackle of ozone,
                                     my chest lifted,
                                                             my chin tipped up,
it's my mother building up fury like a thunderhead on the purple horizon,
            her simmering rage, her silence,
it's me growing old enough to call bullshit, to say I can wreck you too, old enough that I learned
            to set my face like hers, like stone, and make my words cold and hard,
my inheritance,
            my weapon in a world of fire

six:

            the soapy-sweet taste of the rain
                                    sliding down my face.
it's my mother measuring and cutting and making and holding and her hands just fine bones
          wrapped in vellum,
there she is at the sewing machine, the wheel of the car, the whiteboard teaching me algebra, and            
here I am 
learning less than she wanted, but more than she knew,
standing on a stool to measure and cut and recite and be a lot but never enough and she said a lot 
but never you are enough but I know that I am enough and she was enough


 

seven:
                                    the air pressure mouths at my skin, sucking a
                                                             warning, my joints tingle, storm's coming,
eventually I was old enough that I started asking to be tucked in again, will you come tuck me in
                                    and she didn't forget and
                                    there I'd be under the covers and she would slide her palms along the
bedsheet's edge so smooth and sharp and there:
                        me, a variable in an equation,             perfectly fit to the bed's algebra
and her hands on my hair said what her mouth never did which is that I was enough
 


eight:

            wet vegetation heavy on the wind,                  its
                                                                         earthy scent
                                                                         burrowing into my hair,
it's my mother in tears, o terror of terrors, and me afraid and small and too old and too young to know what
my mother's tears sound like, the rustle of them
            scoring marks down her winged cheekbones, you are the whole world I thought in terror
but did not say                                                 you are the whole world
and the whole world cannot weep or          we will drown

 

nine:

            the sky close and breathing heavily,
            clouds  pressing on my shoulders,
                                                            my mother heavy in my arms and suddenly both of us
children
            I can smell her hair I can feel the weight of her tiny bones:                          
                                                                                                 me

 

ten:

light without a source                         but I have a source
streaming onto every pore,                it's my mother who came from her mother who came from
silvering earth, silvering sky,              her mother who came from hers
refracting around my skin,                  o mother I am a mirror
                        unhurried, bestowing its grace.
            o mother you are enough. I am enough. we were enough.


Natasha King's poetry has appeared in GlintmoonLily Poetry ReviewOyster River Pages, and Okay Donkey. She lives in North Carolina, where she spends most of her spare time writing, prowling, and thinking about the ocean. She can be found on Twitter as @pelagic_natasha.