I Go Knocking at Strangers' Doors

 

Because I am old, she is dead. Because I was loved from her strange, shocked,
Wordless heart, I am alive. We will never stop swarming over her curious memory.
Should we let her be, finally resting?

I go knocking at strangers' doors, asking, do you know who my mother was?
I put up posters on lampposts along streets I've never traveled, begging
Did anyone understand this woman, can anyone explain?

Should I go geographical, biographical, theological? Oh the breadcrumbs
Are shiny. How did she dream herself, fairytale by pumpkin
Out of little rich girl into church royalty, holy poverty?

In her lap, softness on softness, I never noticed the deep conundrum.
In her voice, singing, declaiming, I listened right over the silence.
From her sturdiness I strung the hammocks of girlhood.

I knew the pillows where she tucked her murder mysteries, smack
In the middle of her hard, serious days. I knew the dances
That she taught us in our sober Baptist house.

We have scattered and grown, her children. We have spoken
More words than she ever did, faster, harder. I go knocking, asking.
Should we let her be?

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