My Father Teaching my Eldest Daughter
 
Fill the basin with about three inches
of warm water and add a dash of baby oil.
 
Begin with her eyes. With a cotton ball,
start at the inside corner of one eye
 
and wipe outward. Do this to both eyes,
and then gently wash the rest of her face.
 
Make sure to get behind her ears,
drool and spit-up tend to collect back there.
 
He stops talking. My daughter’s hands caress
my mother’s forehead, which relaxes.
 
Mom opens her eyes and looks at them.
Her wet face beautiful in my daughter’s hands.

 

 

My Mother’s Fever

 

Her lips chap, then crack

and bleed. Her cheeks

blush red, her white hair

sticks to her forehead.

My oldest daughter asks,

Is she in pain?

and what can I reply

but No. I don’t think so.

 

On the third morning

standing on their deck,

we watch wind gusts catch

the autumn leaves. As if

suspended by fishing line,

leaves dangle above the river

for moments before falling

into the dark water.

 

The sun cuts through high

grey clouds in radiant beams.

My youngest daughter who

attends a church preschool says,

Look. They’re angels

sliding down those poles of light

like firefighters. Maybe

they’re coming for Grandma.

As if someone can rescue her

from this burning body.

 

 

My Mother’s Transformation

 

This woman whose feet

have curled into bird’s claws.

This woman who no longer speaks,

who sometimes whistles a note,

whose lungs knock like a woodpecker.

Whose arms bend so close to her,

they’re wings and putting on a

nightgown is nearly impossible.

 

Whose mouth opens for yogurt,

for smoothies, for chocolate shakes,

and sometimes I wonder if she knows

the difference. Though today I spooned

a raspberry into her mouth,

and she drew her lips

tight as a beak, refused to eat.

This woman whose white

plume of hair grows wilder:

 

she will not leave this hospital bed

feathered with stuffed animals. She

will not jump. She cannot

even perch on the bed’s edge. She

will not jump. She will not

fly, and no one can

push her.

 

 

The Day Mom Forgets How to Get Out of the Car

 

Mom wrestles with the seat belt.

What’s wrong with you?

she yells. You’ve tied me in here.

 

No, I say. It’s the seatbelt.

I reach across her, undo the belt,

and take her hand. Just step out.

 

Her legs are stiff, she won’t

swing them out of the car door.

I pull her knees towards me,

 

try to lift her, but she grabs

the steering wheel. She clenches

her jaw until her lips blanch.

 

With her free hand,

she swats at me, screams,

Stop it. Leave me here to die.

 

Then she cusses, such a string of words.

For a moment I’m almost glad

she remembers them.

 

 

The Gift

 

Serena brings a flowering branch

of the purple butterfly bush

inside to my mother. She says,

Bean, I tried to get you a pretty butterfly

just like the ones on your rug,

but they keep flying away.

 

Taking the twig gently in her hand,

my mother says, One day

I’d love a daughter just like you.

Serena stands there smiling,

looking just like me. 

 

 

That Wednesday Afternoon

 

Mom, help! Amani screams.

When I run into the room, she’s

crying, pointing at my mother

whose right hand’s wrapped

tightly around something white

that suddenly squirms, bites

my mother’s index finger.

 

Her hand opens, and Patty Ratty

leaps onto the wooden floor, scampers

under the metal bed. My mother

confused at her bleeding finger,

starts to cry. Amani stammers

I thought she’d remember

Patty Ratty. I thought she’d

want to hold her.

 

 

Cleaning Out Her Closet

 

How quickly I fill four black bags,

lace them shut for Goodwill. I tug

the silk safari scarf out of one bag.

On its fabric, a Serengeti of lions,

zebras, gazelles. Dad bought it

because it resembled Tanzania

where they were married.

 

On the top shelf, I find her Peace Corps letters

with their stories of village life,

of the woman who threw a stone at her,

and how she picked it up, winged

it right back at her, how the women

laughed and became friends.

 

Stories of their boss Sargent Shriver

who has Alzheimer’s too

and who my mom once danced with

and later wrote to a sister

He does a mean twist.

Of the small deer-like dik dik

who walked in clock wise circles until he died.

 

I wash the scarf in the sink,

hang it to dry in the river breeze.

Mom snores, freshly bathed

and zippered into a terry cloth gown

the color of sand, of savanna grass, of deer hide.

 

My nephew Max points at the scarf

blowing in the wind, says Cape. Cape.

and my sister ties it still damp

around his bare shoulders. He charges

inside with only the cape and his diapers on,

wakes Mom up, saying, Roar!

She watches as he runs wildly

counter clockwise around her bed.

 

 

© Malaika King Albrecht

 

Malaika King Albrecht’s poems have recently been or are forthcoming in Kakalak: an Anthology of Carolina Poets, Shampoo, Quarterly West, Mannequin Envy, The Pedestal Magazine, The Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel - Second Floor and Poetry Southeast. She is the co-editor of Redheaded Stepchild at http://redheadedmag.com/poetry/, and she is on the advisory board of JMU’s Furious Flower Poetry Center.