'2010/06/21 Five Children Poem by Margaret Alice

I reminded her she was not around
when we were small, yet yesterday
before I’d even arrived to say goodbye
she’d already gone

She never does it on purpose Mother says,
she’s popular but her orchestrated absence
proves the converse - going back all those
years nothing’s changed,

What made me think she’d wait to say
goodbye? Was I foolish thinking she might
care enough to be at home, a sign
of real feeling, but she scorns family

The message is she doesn’t give a damn,
my lecture on spurned children was
meant to make her play “caring mother” –
I was wrong, she could not be bothered

Long-distance trips with friends is priority,
yet she complains grandchildren do not visit,
why should they when she so obviously
doesn’t care about them

I do not wish my kids to feel unwanted by
her lack of feeling; yet the same woman
immorally rejected grandma Alice while
asking her to serve in all emergencies

She brought dad inebriated to see Nici just
three weeks old, he insulted her and me, I was
ill with shock, mother claimed she did not know
he drank though Grandma Alice warned her well

With “religious” friends support she claims she
plays a martyr’s role as her family rejects her
I wonder why WE are evil, starting with her own
mother, grandma Alice, dad and five children...