For Her Poem by Kevin Patrick

Turning backwards in kaleidoscope forest of memories
I'm somewhere down the rapids of times tributaries
Myopically navel-gazing the fluxing course of a river
But stranded against torrents as the film plays on

It's circa 92, but still remnants of the 80s cling through
In the form of atmospheres of Hairspray and neon paint collages
Wilson Philips howls through two cheap speakerphones
On a boom box radio where you keep all your mementos
In motley arrays of basic cosmetics and Gypsy jewelry
Books stumble on shelves like a line of iterant school children
The Probability is your attention should be in college
But at the moment I'm a zigzagging fly in need of attention
And you put away the books that will get us out from this house
Always committed to your role as a good method mother

You're wrapping a string bean me, as a giant's sandwich
Blanket sheets for white bread with me as the lunchmeat
Delicately you wrap the corners as if performing geometry
Each curve is banded like rolling caterpillar compactor
With me at the center until I am comfortably suffocated
Erupting in enthusiasm when your soft arms dislodge
And carry me upwards with playful threats of cannibalism
Until I'm flying in your arms like trampoline in a rocket
As your voice softly composes the air hypnotic perfume
Disseminating calmness with a nurses inebriating smile

Temporarily docile, you get back to cleaning your room
I sneak through your drawers and find color coded candy
In the child friendly form of a plastic circular disk
There are words on the center with a moveable triangle
I try to pop a red one out, but like lightning you strike
Taken the vial, and with a look I would later call discomfiture
You say its "For Mommies Only" and swiftly hide it like Houdini
My attention shrugs and I get back to Playing with a stuffed E.T.

And College calls back with a desk full of notebooks
White Papers coalesced in layers like falling leafs
Sometimes I peak over at the blue ink of your words
I don't understand Piaget theory of development yet
But I like the way you bend the "v" into soft point "u"
Your writing is more like rose petals of calligraphy
Gauzing each line with seamless commitment
Schoolwork has always been important to you
Psychology terms are filled up with your skull
Pharmaceutical textbooks are forcing you to cram
You understand the paper chase is a key to success
Without knowing it you're showing me education is god
And I will take a love of knowledge based on your nourishment
You taught me to think without drinking the Kool-Aid of


And though times made you wiser you're always twenty-five
Your face is the static mirror how I remember you by
Perfect without perfection trespassing on your eye
No withered lines or maiming marks your limestone skin
Lime Spots have not docked the recess of your temples
Black haired curled in your own fashion rebellion
Your diet of dyeing hasn't yet become an addiction yet
Nail chewing and cigarettes are still your deadly pastime
A byproducts of two generations of Irish Montrealers
Has made cynicism your fountain of youthful vigor

It's not 92 anymore, and time arrows pushing forward
I've only reflections of a life not know my own
To learn how greater the battle was for you
Single mothers with career goals are breed of test wills
Soaring through hell of parents and midterms
Your my marvelous Minerva, graduate from gen-x
Possessing those faculties of rock and roll spirit
Tortured confidence, self-conscious and independence
Your better than a father because your my mother
And my greatest scholarship was your unguarded arms