Madre Meurte: a love poem

I am deeply proud that this poem was chosen as a finalist in the Brooklyn Poets Walt Whitman Biennial Poetry Contest in 2019. Close but no cigar, nevertheless I was and remain honored by the notice.

It was written in 2018, my mother lived another 8 years. A time she described as the most content of her life. Until it becomes a necessity it is hard to hold the words Mother and Death in your mouth together at the same time. In this poem I was practicing, as one will. But it could never have prepared me for the real thing.

She died just shy of her 96th birthday. We decided, together, to say that she died of old age and self determination. The rest of the story isn't nearly as important.

I asked her what she wanted me to say to close her celebration of life. She thought for maybe two seconds and looked at me defiantly, "Fuck the fascists!" And so we all raised a fist and shouted it twice.

This poem is a love letter:

The Willliamsburg Bridge pedestrian Walkway c.1951