Refresh
Judith Terzi
I.
Dear Mom. I've turned to old overnight, it seems.
A poet said I had a beautiful face––
for my age. I was at an art gallery.
Macaroons, brie, sunflowers on tablecloths.
She said it was a compliment. I was pissed.
Summer has arrived too soon. The blankets and
duvet have come off the bed. Heat wave, fires.
Our musty spread clashes with the pillow shams.
Sprigs of French lavender hardly match aimless
swishes of pink, green and turquoise. You would die.
If only you could see my house, Mom. We moved
when you lived at Raya's Paradise. How you
hated Raya's until the meds kicked in. Then
you stopped screaming to take you the hell away.
You always asked for your purse upstairs. There was
no second floor. No purse either. Saturdays
I rolled up your white polyester slacks and
massaged your lily white legs with lotion. For
five years every Saturday. And you massaged
my feet the first few years, separating each
toe, calling my callouses big bulbs, telling
me to buy cold cream because my feet needed
a severe rubbing. Ina cut your hair once
a month for ten dollars. You looked so precious
in a bob. All those years of curlers and clips
and Aqua Net. My hair's stark white now. I wear
it up like grandma did. I don't feel old but
must look it. Another poet pissed me off.
The ass is over eighty and loose-tongued like
you at ninety when you told a nurse sex would
cure her acne. I walked into a reading
and the jerk yells out: "Here comes Judith Terzi's
mother!" Filter, filter way off kilter. May
have to dye my hair again. And must not chat
it up so much with the grocery checkers.
Mom, you turned a hundred and seven today.
P.S. Your baby brother died last week.
I went to the funeral and trickled
particles of rancor into his grave.
If you see him floating by, tell him I'd
like an apology for the time he
told me to shut the hell up, that women
shouldn't talk politics. Ok, I was
fresh out of Berkeley and had slit open
a can of threat, ranting against the War
in Vietnam. Remember when he called
me a commie? I grabbed my first husband
and we split. Let's not talk about rumors
he spread about my stealing your money
to elope to San Luis Obispo.
Not one word about compassion at his
funeral. Just the prosaic dangle
of fur coats over staircases. Do you
get my drift, Mom? So sorry for the rant.
Daddy's oldest sister died too. I think
she was a hundred and six. She wrote me
out of her will. Not even a gold chain.
No one's left in your generation now.
The cousins and I are in the firing
line. Gotta go. Hope you're having a blast.
II.
Hi Mom. The mourning doves have babies again.
They've already flown the coop, wait to be fed
under the oleanders on the north side
of our house. That's the shady side that faces
the San Gabriels. I see the hawks circling.
You're nursing me in the photo on my desk.
Same age as I was when you know who did not
want a baby. I raged against men and war
then caved in to nurture over nature. I'm
sorry, Mom. I know how much you wanted me
to keep it. When you got sick, you became my
baby, my butterfly birthing backward, your
fragile wings fluttering inward, imploding.
Our two beings interlaced, growing more and
more indistinguishable. Mirror, mirror
of genetic guipure. Of perception, sound,
appearance, gesture. I renewed my license
last month. My first photo without L'Oréal
medium brown. I told the clerk that was my
mother's image. But everything is fine, Mom:
My third marriage is the moon. You met the man
when you were sick. You said he was your boyfriend,
then you thought he was your doctor days before
you died. He found your note in a skirt pocket:
Hold this for the future. We keep all your notes
in my green ballet case, the one you and I
shlepped Saturdays on the Philly subway to
Nadia Chilkovsky's dance academy.
Mom, at Raya's you had no idea where you
were, but read the words I wrote on a magic
slate. You were phenomenal. I wrote mom and
you asked which way to read it. I wish you could
write me back to let me know what you think of
this poem. You could correct my grammar like you
used to. And I could hear you call me darling
again. Dearest Mom. Hold this for the future.
Dear Mom. I've turned to old overnight, it seems.
A poet said I had a beautiful face––
for my age. I was at an art gallery.
Macaroons, brie, sunflowers on tablecloths.
She said it was a compliment. I was pissed.
Summer has arrived too soon. The blankets and
duvet have come off the bed. Heat wave, fires.
Our musty spread clashes with the pillow shams.
Sprigs of French lavender hardly match aimless
swishes of pink, green and turquoise. You would die.
If only you could see my house, Mom. We moved
when you lived at Raya's Paradise. How you
hated Raya's until the meds kicked in. Then
you stopped screaming to take you the hell away.
You always asked for your purse upstairs. There was
no second floor. No purse either. Saturdays
I rolled up your white polyester slacks and
massaged your lily white legs with lotion. For
five years every Saturday. And you massaged
my feet the first few years, separating each
toe, calling my callouses big bulbs, telling
me to buy cold cream because my feet needed
a severe rubbing. Ina cut your hair once
a month for ten dollars. You looked so precious
in a bob. All those years of curlers and clips
and Aqua Net. My hair's stark white now. I wear
it up like grandma did. I don't feel old but
must look it. Another poet pissed me off.
The ass is over eighty and loose-tongued like
you at ninety when you told a nurse sex would
cure her acne. I walked into a reading
and the jerk yells out: "Here comes Judith Terzi's
mother!" Filter, filter way off kilter. May
have to dye my hair again. And must not chat
it up so much with the grocery checkers.
Mom, you turned a hundred and seven today.
P.S. Your baby brother died last week.
I went to the funeral and trickled
particles of rancor into his grave.
If you see him floating by, tell him I'd
like an apology for the time he
told me to shut the hell up, that women
shouldn't talk politics. Ok, I was
fresh out of Berkeley and had slit open
a can of threat, ranting against the War
in Vietnam. Remember when he called
me a commie? I grabbed my first husband
and we split. Let's not talk about rumors
he spread about my stealing your money
to elope to San Luis Obispo.
Not one word about compassion at his
funeral. Just the prosaic dangle
of fur coats over staircases. Do you
get my drift, Mom? So sorry for the rant.
Daddy's oldest sister died too. I think
she was a hundred and six. She wrote me
out of her will. Not even a gold chain.
No one's left in your generation now.
The cousins and I are in the firing
line. Gotta go. Hope you're having a blast.
II.
Hi Mom. The mourning doves have babies again.
They've already flown the coop, wait to be fed
under the oleanders on the north side
of our house. That's the shady side that faces
the San Gabriels. I see the hawks circling.
You're nursing me in the photo on my desk.
Same age as I was when you know who did not
want a baby. I raged against men and war
then caved in to nurture over nature. I'm
sorry, Mom. I know how much you wanted me
to keep it. When you got sick, you became my
baby, my butterfly birthing backward, your
fragile wings fluttering inward, imploding.
Our two beings interlaced, growing more and
more indistinguishable. Mirror, mirror
of genetic guipure. Of perception, sound,
appearance, gesture. I renewed my license
last month. My first photo without L'Oréal
medium brown. I told the clerk that was my
mother's image. But everything is fine, Mom:
My third marriage is the moon. You met the man
when you were sick. You said he was your boyfriend,
then you thought he was your doctor days before
you died. He found your note in a skirt pocket:
Hold this for the future. We keep all your notes
in my green ballet case, the one you and I
shlepped Saturdays on the Philly subway to
Nadia Chilkovsky's dance academy.
Mom, at Raya's you had no idea where you
were, but read the words I wrote on a magic
slate. You were phenomenal. I wrote mom and
you asked which way to read it. I wish you could
write me back to let me know what you think of
this poem. You could correct my grammar like you
used to. And I could hear you call me darling
again. Dearest Mom. Hold this for the future.
Listen to Judith read the poem here:
Working notes
These poems are edited from a larger memoir poem that will form a chapbook. As of this writing, there are 10 parts. Originally, I used 11 syllables in each line and had 7 stanzas of 5 lines in each part. I like challenges, but this one was way too restrictive, so I finally decided to loosen up the narrative. Now, each part has a different syllabic count and different stanza arrangement.
In terms of "feminisms," I can say that I've always wanted to write about the "women shouldn't talk politics" comment that my uncle made many years ago. It is still one of my family's favorite stories. The memoir started off originally with funerals, storage facilities, wills, and family idiosyncrasies, but then seemed to flow into more letters about current preoccupations with illness and aging. This is the second series of letters I've written to my mother. I love the flexibility this form allows to digress, regress, rock back and forth in time, to embellish the intimacy and ambivalence between a mother and daughter.
In terms of "feminisms," I can say that I've always wanted to write about the "women shouldn't talk politics" comment that my uncle made many years ago. It is still one of my family's favorite stories. The memoir started off originally with funerals, storage facilities, wills, and family idiosyncrasies, but then seemed to flow into more letters about current preoccupations with illness and aging. This is the second series of letters I've written to my mother. I love the flexibility this form allows to digress, regress, rock back and forth in time, to embellish the intimacy and ambivalence between a mother and daughter.
About the author
Judith Terzi holds an M.A. in French Literature. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Centrifugal Eye; Forgetting Home: Poems about Alzheimer's (Barefoot Muse); Malala: Poems for Malala Yousafzai (FutureCycle); Myrrh, Mothwing, Smoke: Erotic Poems (Tupelo); The Raintown Review; and Times They Were A-Changing: Women Remember the 60s & 70s (She Writes). Her fourth chapbook, Ghazal for a Chambermaid, is forthcoming from Finishing Line. A former high school French teacher, she also taught English at California State University, Los Angeles, and in Algiers, Algeria. You can visit her website here.