12.01.19

Mama’s Face

For seven years

I thought Mama was twenty-nine.

Until I finally asked Sister 

Why does only our mama never get older?

And she said

“Mama isn’t twenty-nine.

She just thinks she’s too old.”

When I was ten I finally learned that

Mama was fifty! 

‘Cause we threw her a party

And I got to try caviar

For the very first time

And wear my fur muff with Mama’s blue scarf

Tied around my neck, made of real silk

And talk to grown-ups

While hiding cookies in napkins

In the drawer by my bed for later.

“Fifty is SUCH a big number!”

I exclaimed, impressed, clapping

When the chocolate-raspberry cake appeared.

Mama laughed that I’d spoken just then

And Sister slapped my arm.

I blushed

Realizing I’d blabbed too loudly

And switched to silent pride

Thinking about how lucky I was

To have a mama

With a smile prettier than lilies of the valley

Which she let me pick sometimes. 

I couldn’t wait to turn fifty

And have my own big party like Mama!

I told my friends on Monday

To which they cried

“Your mom is FIFTY??”

“My grandma is in her fifties!”

“That’s so OLD!”

And I learned

That their mamas were thirty-five

And forty-one

And thirty-eight 

And I was suddenly very worried

Because Joey said that

Mine would be ugly the fastest.

I thought that this must be wrong

Because how could a smile like Mama’s turn ugly?

But when I was thirteen I learned 

That it worried Mama too.

‘Cause when I got my first zit

A giant, achy pink lump on my forehead

That Danny P. had pointed out at lunch

Mama said

“When you’re fifty-three and have wrinkles

And sagging jowls 

And eyelids that no longer like to sit up

You’ll miss the days when you got zits.”

And she introduced me to the beginning

Of a lifetime of creams

As she put it.

These pots and bottles

Would become my best friends.

And would keep me looking and feeling

Magnificent!

For as long as possible.

When I was sixteen I learned

That it also worried Dad

‘Cause we were listening to Mama whail

About how she always looks mad

Due to her deflating cheeks

And frown lines

And he said to me later

“Your mom is so beautiful

And I wish she wouldn’t worry

But I’d support her getting some work done

If it made her happier.”

When Mama didn’t get work done

I was relieved

Because this meant that her spectacular face would transform

Into delicate paper folds that bend and multiply

And explode into a shower of golden specks

Around a forever-lily mouth

Whose lines may bleed lipstick 

but also tick and tell time.

Mama’s face 

Is made from sixty-two years

Of American states and cheap dinner plates

Of lust and cadavers

Of ice-blue hydrangeas and pearly white gates

Beaten into her with a wide-toothed comb

And no blue eyeshadow allowed.

The more mama sees

And feels

The more beautiful she becomes.

Every spot, dimple and dash

Makes the punctuation in her story

Told by the density of her skin

And bookmarked by greying hair.

Commemoration is ingrained

In the lines we strive to dismiss.

If “age is just a number”

Why do the creams that negate it

Go into triple digits on the receipt? 

For a species so afraid of death

We often forget

That age is proof of having lived.