my mother

my mother

is now forty-four

a mother of three

two daughters

one son (ay kay ay me)

a grandmother of four

(three alive, two about to be alive

so those only count as half)

a wife

not behind her man

but beside him

i remember

age sixteen:

my father was home cooking

not cleaning

like we did every Friday

my mother came home

and was furious

i had heard of fathers

coming home

and yelling at mothers

because the house wasn't clean

that was the last time i remember them yelling