Mom, Now

 

My mother, alone,

enduring my stepfather’s 

slow decline in 

a convalescent home,

for the first time,

speaks to me about 

her depression.

She sneaks it,

still ashamed,

couched in a list of other anxieties

and ailments – 

of which she now has many –

sometimes in a tone so matter-of-fact,

she waves it away;

sometimes 

through tears of resignation:

crying whither comes no sob or hitch,

just a huskiness of voice,

an occasional sniff

while the tears wend 

through deep wrinkles,

age-narrowed shoulders slumping.

She is so old now,

but her emotional strength

which sometimes in my youth appeared 

as callousness, even cruelty,

has new cracks.

The dam is brittle,

but it’s impossible to know if behind it

lies a vast, full, reservoir

of old pain,

or a desert plain 

with a last small stream

that now and then swells,

overflowing shallow banks.

Then,

with one wide, spotted hand 

she raises her heavy glasses.

With the other 

she wipes the tears away,

lets out a shuddering breath,

and tells me,

Don’t worry so much.

You always were a worrier.