*
Three Months Past My Mother’s Death
traveling through Traverse City, I see a sign in a New Age bookstore:
Massage, Reiki, Readings. Heavy with grief, I think a laying on of hands
might do me good. Later, at the back of the shop, I go through a door
into a tiny massage room. The therapist introduces herself, asks if
I want a reading too. I most certainly do not, I think. No, thank you, I say.
Her work is gentle & thorough & when she’s done, the knotted rope
of my body has become a hammock. Once I’m dressed, she comes back in
saying I know you don’t want a reading but my guides have a message
for you. There’s no charge. Will you listen? Okay, I tell her.
Be happy
she says & I burst into tears. When I can get words out, I say I can’t
be happy. My mother just died.
Your mother didn’t die, she tells
me. She made her transition. Will you say her name? Gladys Hoskins,
I say, giving each syllable the same pressure she gave Be Happy.
She closes her eyes.
This woman knows nothing of me or my mother, who was 89 when she
left us. Eighty-nine & working full-time till three weeks before she passed.
Who promised me she’d go to the doctor as I drove the three hours
to her house. Who went to a meeting instead.
Your mother, the healer
begins, leaning again on the weight of each word, is very busy. She wants
you to stop worrying about her.
*
Eve
works in foundations
bras, girdles,
merry widows.
She sells undies
32A to 48D
cotton, nylon
rigid, racy.
She sells what binds
and defines, lifts
and separates,
squeezes in and pushes out.
What makes
a woman-shape
out of the soft
swing and flow
of female flesh
makes cones
out of curves
taut from loose
soft into hard.
She buys here too.
O Eve, stripped
in the wavery light
of the Ben Snyder
dressing room,
remember when you
walked, ecstatic
and naked
in the Garden,
at home in the roll
of you, round and
luscious, how firm
a foundation was that?
Harlan County native, George Ella Lyon writes in multiple genres for readers of all ages. She has published five poetry collections, a novel and memoir for adults, novels and poetry for young people, and many children’s picture books. Her most recent titles include Back To The Light: Poems (University Press of Kentucky, 2021) and Time to Fly (Atheneum, 2022). Her poem “Where I’m From” has gone around the world as a writing model. Married to musician and writer Steve Lyon, she served as Kentucky Poet Laureate (2015-2016) and was recently inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame.