Chidago Canyon Petroglyph, Detail
Merry-Go-Round
I do not want to see
my childless aunt
in her everyday gray
all weather raincoat,
her lips pursed,
her fingers trilling the air
each time I pass.
I am standing in the stirrups
because she hates that.
Here on my horse,
she cannot hold my hand
the way she insists.
She is too timid
to climb onto the rickety carousel,
too stiff to throw a leg over.
I like to imagine my mother there
on a stallion beside me,
stylish in her crisp shirtdress
and espadrilles, her lips
bright red, standing tall
in the saddle, singing along,
“Pop goes the weasel”
leaning out to take aim
at other parents, pop,
pop, pop, pop.
My mother who now
lives in pajamas, too sick
to leave the house.
She married my father
just for the way he danced,
the man she now hates
for still dancing.
My aunt always ready to take me
to the park, to the pool
a snack waiting there
on the backseat beside me.
My aunt who
brings banana bread
and groceries
and sneaks around
to make the beds
in our unmade house.
I hate my aunt for being
the only chance I have.
___________
Grey Brown
Review by Philip Kirsch (Merry-Go-Round & Talking Anywhere, Everywhere)
These two evocative poems go together, the second setting a backstory for the first. The image of the mother in “Talking Anywhere, Everywhere,” detached from reality and so unable to care for her child, “snapping down the street/her arms waving,” embarrassing the child who was “cornered…in the gym” as others “whispered” about “her aimless chatter” is precise and powerful. The straightforward descriptions give us a moving, accessible portrait of a parent whose condition might have been normalized, at least in appearance, by a cell phone or Bluetooth, saving the child some shame and bullying “as she rambled along/talking to God and the dead,/those folks who/were always home.” That our modern technology could have helped the situation somewhat is sadly ironic — and those concluding four lines are tone perfect.
And so, in “Merry-Go-Round” the very aunt who stands in for the mother “who now/lives in pajamas, too sick/to leave the house,” is the target for the resentment the child, understandably, feels, and once again the poet draws detailed, dramatic pictures of the people and situations, so that we truly share the remembered emotions. “I like to imagine my mother [on the merry-go-round],” “stylish,” “standing tall,” in place of the “timid,” “stiff” aunt, the aunt who nonetheless fulfills the practical needs, “ready to take me/to the park, to the pool,” “who/brings banana bread/and groceries” — and even makes the beds! So we very clearly feel the tension between what the child recognizes is being done for them, and what they wish for, and the certain guilt that comes with that; and I continue to cite lines from the poem because they are so telling: “I am standing in the stirrups/because she [the aunt] hates that,” the aunt who is “always ready,” with “a snack waiting there/on the backseat beside me.” The poet returns to the lifegiving aunt to close the poem, embracing the unwelcome paradox that “I hate my aunt for being/the only chance I have.”
Review by Karen O’Leary
The contrasts between the two women are evident. I like the way the author shows me through imagery rather than telling me about what’s presented. I felt like the father could have been further developed? Maybe one or two lines could accomplish the father-son relationship without bogging down the poem? How can a child experience the mother’s hate when hate is such a personal emotion? The relationship between them before the mother’s illness could be developed a bit more? The author gets the final say on how deep the ride. The last two lines are profound, leaving the reader with something to take with him or her.
Review by Massimo Fantuzzi
Anger and Candour, Love’s two little stepdaughters, play chase in this poem and take the reader on the carousel of this unfair world towards which unfairness becomes the only fair response. We are at the sharp end of attachment, where hurt and rebellion feed each other in a dangerous spiral that goes round and round. What makes a carer a mother? What makes a looked-after child a daughter? Working in education I often ask myself whether and to what degree the state can replace parenthood with good intentions and perfect résumés, selling the visceral contact of flesh and blood for the fulfilment of material, intellectual and emotional needs, and what is the price for the severing of the umbilical cord done by external agencies, but I digress.