GOOD NIGHT, IRENE

Mama, your laugh and mine

have changed. 

Can you hear it, too?

Do you know it's me?

All those mornings dancing,

I was so young and you

in your peignoir and always a cigarette in your hands.

Mama, I was happy and you smiled

when I told you I wanted to be grown, to know you,

to drink from a glass with ice.

Then I was older and you 

held my hand and showed me how to work the strings 

on my Sears and Roebuck flat top guitar.
Your voice and mine, together mama,

smoking in the afternoon.

We sang until we laughed. 

But there was a boy, mama,

and I loved him and you

understood how the telephone distorted our voices.

Yet when my own baby came you laughed just like a horse. 

I resented that, mama, and I screamed and you

told me how it all comes back around. 

Tonight, mama, I will hold your hand

and we will play our songs.

Then when your eyes are quiet, 

I will know that you are gone.

Back home I will lay in bed with my child.

In the morning we will dance and you,

will hear our laugh again.

(Benjamin King is a black belt in aikido, the american katrate. He likes juggling, magic, mime, tina yothers, and everything else that you hate. http://rollerfink.blogspot.com/)