Mother’s Day weekend is one that for many is bittersweet… but this poem struck me as motherhood perfection. I first heard it on the Poetry For All podcast yesterday and after hearing it I immediately purchased the Kindle copy of Dorianne Laux’s Life On Earth: Poems. Dorianne Laux is a new-to-me poet, but this poem resonated deeply with me… and I thought it might with you too.
Singer
by Dorianne Laux
If I could go back to the living room window
of my childhood house, look again
through the pane, it would be a telescope lens
through which I might see the first woman
I ever met, my mother at her sewing machine,
rewinding the bobbin, little spool with holes
like an old movie reel our tiny lives
spun inside of. I might see
her long piano fingers touch the balance wheel,
the throat plate, the presser bar, one bare foot
working the treadle, her heel revealing
only the first three letters in black latticed metal:
SIN. My mother was what some called
a sinful woman: divorced, pregnant
without a husband, a baby boy given up
for adoption, remarried, another baby
born of another man, a one night stand,
while her husband was away at war.
She drank too much, thought too much,
laughed with her head thrown back, danced
with anyone. Too pretty, too brainy,
too tall, her black hair a snare
that hooked men in. But right now
she’s fully visible, stretching the fabric
for a kitchen curtain, a child’s dress,
swatches she salvaged from the deep
sale bins, using the selvedge for a hem
thereby cutting her handwork by half,
the black oiled mechanism banging out
dress after dress, tablecloths and runners,
nothing she couldn’t cobble together
from the waste of others. She was
a very particular, peculiar mother
and by now you can see why
we loved her. She was a lit fuse
in the rain. She turned from her work
and set those same fingers
on the piano keys and pulled
music through the air. Making something
from nothing was what she was good at:
love, children, pants and skirts
to dress them in, a table covered
with cherries on which the beautiful food
appeared, roses from her front yard garden
in an old cracked vase, her long arms
around our shoulders saying Sit still. Eat.
Try not to spill anything.
Singer, published in Life on Earth © 2024 by Dorianne Laux.
You can learn more about Dorianne here and here.
If you are celebrating Mother’s Day, I wish you a very happy day.
See you all back here on Monday.
This is simply a wonderful poem, Kat! I love the window pane as a telescope lens and all the details about sewing and the mother herself. Thank you for sharing!
This is a brilliant poem that so beautifully captures how mothers are also people, with all their faults and foibles. Thank you so much for sharing it. And happy Mother’s Day to you!
What a beautiful descriptive poem, I felt completely drawn into the scene. Happy Mother’s Day, Kat!
What a beautiful poem. I just read a poem by Laux in one of the Crews’ anthologies. I’m going to follow the links to learn more about the poet.
Love this, my mom was an avid sewing person and made my clothes when I was little. She was always at the sewing machine.