Two Poems from a While Ago-A Guest Post by Laura Cook

Laura Cook returns to From Life to Me with two poems she wrote a while ago. That was the subject line of the email she sent me and I felt it would work very well as the title to this post.

Welcome back, Laura!

The Bilge Master

KALOPSIA

- after Sára J. Molčan’s “Post Coital”

When my mother smoked cigarettes,

she exhaled in flowers: dainty periwinkle, 

sprigs of foxglove, a wall of top-heavy tulips.

The blooms scrambled upwards from her lips,

reaching for the light above the kitchen table

as if it were a sun instead of a fluorescent flicker.

As an infant, I would enfold the petals in my 

chubby palms, not questioning this miracle

of horticulture. But when I was older I noticed

how she would always smoke after my father had 

stormed off into the night, leaving the house

as shocked and silent as the air after a slap.

A trellis of roses climbed in front of her face, 

a screen. It was her way of not seeing.

She did the same when he raised his fists

to me, and on the day I finally raised mine

back to him. I don’t know if my father saw the flowers;

I don’t know if he was even capable of knowing beauty

when he encountered it. All I know is that

when I think of spring, I feel a burning in my lungs and

a cough in my throat, and a familiar anger rises in my chest. 

Every year I leave a pack of Salems on her headstone, 

hoping that I will return to find a bouquet. 

SUMMER STORMS

- after Hobson Pittman’s “Reflections”

My mother used to call us to the porch 

to watch the summer thunderstorms. 

We’d sit just out of reach of the driving rain, 

close enough to catch drops in our palms

and shriek in glee at the crashes of thunder. 

Once, lightning struck the red maple out front 

with a flash so blinding I saw it in my dreams 

for weeks. When the angry gray clouds moved out 

towards the mountains, they left us a world

so bright and clear it hurt to look at. We splashed 

through the grass, danced our feet verdant green. 

My mother would pick up the fallen branches and 

weave herself a crown. Wildness burned in her eyes 

after a storm, a feral thrill that took hours to fade.

When I returned from the funeral, a storm louder than 

any I could remember descended upon the old house.

The floorboards shook. A vase of ancient silk flowers

tipped from a shelf, crash muffled by the rain’s dull roar.

The beat of my heart pounded in my ears, 

a primeval song without words, a battle drum.

For a moment I thought I saw my mother 

through the rain, long-legged and twirling.

I knew without looking that her feet were as green

as moss, that on her brow rested a circlet of branches.

Look, girls, she called. Come and see the storm!