Alexis Quinlan
Motherland
Mother was a party girl—volunteered
for Dems, loved her U.S. history—and
I’m sort of a party girl, and yesterday
at a get-out-the-vote phone bank
I spotted her across the room for a split—
just a quick—the old ugliness dropped
away. She must’ve rotted by now, the witch,
but this year friends bring her up. How
she drew us near to argue, debate,
to rap on her principles, her America.
But any fine idea can veer off the path,
a child astray, blue-white disappointment.
She snuck into my wedding, too. I spied her
in back of the church, skulking among
my dearest at rehearsal. She wore
a green dress she liked at the end, silky sheen,
polyester, maybe we buried her in it.
Still trying to glom onto my fun.
She mostly adored my boyfriends, history
majors like her, who shared her politics, knew
her facts. Everyone’s smarter than me.
And now this husband reads the entire
Times every morning, rises early for the job.
One anniversary, during one of the years
we didn’t mention it, his daughters were
teasing him about the past, as they like to do.
They brought up his rowdy mothers-in-law—
his ex had two moms—and he said, I have
another mother-in-law I wish I’d met.
His young women didn’t like that, but I did.
Because I know just how it would be
(for a while): the three of us talking—
or five of us, why not?—
late into the night on these nights,
reviewing news, weighing data,
arguing for the same side
for our principles, our party, our great
lake of story, America.
Alexis Quinlan‘s most recent poetry chapbook, an admission, is a warning against the value of our conclusions [Exit Strata/The Operating System 2013] comprises a series of interventions on and responses to Freud’s essay, “Mourning and Melancholia.” More poems have appeared in The Paris Review, Drunken Boat, Rhino, Tinderbox, Juked, and Madison Review. She works as an adjunct English teacher at Fordham University.
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