Ode to My Momma

Rough and calloused fingers,

Tobacco stained and strong.

Eyes that hinted of stories

Past and present.

Twinkling eyes that promised

Dirty jokes, joy, and warmth.

My mother was vibrantly alive.

She never told me a dirty joke.

I was her floating tumor,

Or so the doctor had promised,

When late in life she found herself

Accidentally with child.

Her only boy

Was not to be told dirty jokes.

Iced tea was the only vice she practiced.

Except for her Pall Malls, of course.

She stored the others away

For the same reason she never sat down to supper.

She was the giver.

She was the server.

Never the taker.

Never the served.

I was not a good son.

She was a good mother.

Seeing the barriers I erected,

Seeing the barricades I constructed,

Seeing my crossed arms and eyes,

Accepting my behavior without blaming

Herself or me,

She continued to give and love.

She lived to see her floating tumor’s baby boy.

Her first airplane ride, exciting and fun,

Created good stories,

Incidental to holding her son’s son.

My mother passed away 

Too soon afterward.

Cigarette in one hand, phone in the other.

Dirty joke singing in the phone lines.