HOMELESS BUT NOT MOTHERLESS
( Variation on a theme
by
L. K
WITKO)
1.
As the blood mingles with the pure liquid-
the air of a fresh spring
with the slogan ALL WAR FUNDS TO THE UNEMPLOYED
the earth renews itself to me
in the glare of spring and hunger
no footsteps halt in corridors in basement rooms
I swing a rope around the continent's neck
and jump a freight to tell the boys
the things I know
the eyes like falcons rove the prairieland
unnerve the tightlipped people in their towns
Perhaps on some windswept crossing
I'll spot a woman of young years
who lifting my quivering life with her teeth
will carry if off beyond the mountains
2.
On a speeding train I sighted my mother
dozing wrapped in her shabby coat
leaning her furrowed cheek against a stranger's shoulder
with the sun burrowing in her great ear
the locomotive's shriek
startles the lonely roads where the local boys
park their cars in the swoonlight
A fragment of her hotcha smile
flashes from the movie sign
across the tracks The light fades with mother's deep sigh
her image a live coal in the
skull
17
