poem for Noriko, Tomi, and Fumiko (Molly McGrath)

1. 

there is nothing more divine than the down-turn of a suspended

widow’s face, she 

could exist between two expressions,

her life becomes full of rites,

faith without beauty and she,

knees pressed, eyes whole,

and afraid to crack, she is afraid to 

say no,

for what is love if not belief and then,

what is belief if not the cruelest form of forgiveness.

2.

the bowl of her smile, the bowl of her belly,

mother, she expands to meet

her children;

for son, I was born

for daughter I was raised up

for son I've lived and 

for son I will die

for widow I'm dying now and

for husband I long, I long and I lose and I’m lost,

lost to a daughter I never lived for, the daughter

that becomes me.

3.

today she is thinking about the call of motherhood,

her belly reaching out and reaching back and meeting

in a corpulent middle,

about the way women are starved differently

the way she craves more,

more love, more metropolitan, more time.

she drinks the future syrupy,

coughing and wincing and sugary sweet.

and her children,

coughing and wincing back.

 




 

Comments

  1. Krishnan VenkateshNovember 7, 2021 at 7:57 PM

    A moving fusion of all three wives. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. jcmaberryNovember 11, 2021 at 1:10 PM

    Wow, this is an amazing poem. I love how you've connected the three, like women are somehow born simply to raise children and think about others, and never themselves. I feel like we talked a lot in class about Noriko, but I think your delve into Fumiko's thoughts is really interesting. I don't know if this is what you were going for, but I get the sense that Fumiko is a very cramped person, both from the movie (the smallness of her home) and from the way your poem is structured. The idea of want that all those living in Tokyo have is well reflected in her.

    ReplyDelete

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