Peggy Hammond
What’s A Mother To Do
When you fainted, tumbled
down gray stairs,
was it enough? When you were
hauled to the hospital
because of a bubblegum
and laxative diet, did it
do? Or even then, did
your mother frown and
tug at your gown, scowl
at your stomach (concave)
and whisper
you can do it if only
you buckle down,
use that self-control I
passed on to you.
Graduating summa cum
laude, marrying a banker. Did
it matter? When you
overdosed under
a strawberry red Texas
sky, did your mother
cry? Or was that a shake
of her head as she
tsk-tsked, remembering
how she’d tried to bolster
your cracked plastic ego, your
eggshell weak
self-control.
Anatomy of a Slow Collapse
the morning you cried because the opening of
Ode to Joy was too sonorous, deep bellied, a
monster rousing itself
the afternoon the hawk’s sharp screams shook
your bones into a death rattle that lasted so
many days sleep moved three doors down
the month of rain, everything black with mildew or
green with slime, you cut your hair in an uneven
offering to whatever goddess would summon the sun
the April dawn you severed tulip heads in the
neighbor’s garden, certain they listened to
your dreams, certain their orange flame would
reduce our house to ash
Peggy Hammond’s recent poems appear or are forthcoming in The Blue Mountain Review, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, Red Tree Review, Club Plum, Burningword Literary Journal, The Hyacinth Review, Thimble Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. A Best of the Net nominee, her chapbook The Fifth House Tilts is due out fall 2022 (Kelsay Books). Find her on Twitter @PHammondPoetry.