Letters to My Mother

In Other Times, Other Places, Other People

I wish we could have rewound time and been other people.
We could have been strangers having a drink in an airport bar,
formed a friendship that lasted through relationships and kids.
We could have been neighborhood kids who grew up together,
suffered through parental rules and high school.
Or maybe, just neighbors who watched out for each other,
swapping stories and checking in while bringing in trash bins.

At the very least, perhaps we could have pretended
to be other people for a time, for a week or two—
erasing past foot prints,
created new ones
in some distant soil.
All the while,
we could have worn different faces.
You could have chosen the mother’s face
you’d have liked to have worn.
And I could have chosen a daughter’s face
that perhaps wasn’t some reminder
of what you wanted to forget or ignore.

If we could have worn different faces,
made new footprints in different places--
Perhaps our burdens 
of rage and loss and fear
would have drifted away
like runaway balloons
at a child’s birthday party
long before that day in July
that haunts me still
when I had to reach down
to close your frightened eyes.