Tongue
by Bobbi Lurie
My mother's tongue still brings her pleasure
I watch her licking the ice cream from the cone
Stare into her profile smooth and distant as the moon
And when the ice cream drips down her chin
I pick up a napkin
Clench it in my fist
Every Monday my mother boiled cow's tongue
It would sit mute in the middle of the plate
In the middle of the table waiting
Its taste buds accusing us
I chewed the tongue with difficulty
Swallowed because I had to
My mother used to sigh in the kitchen
Sometimes crying sometimes telling me why
She could not love that other man
Whose face lay prized inside the photo album
She'd scrape the mustard-stained remains of cow's tongue
Into the trash
My mother used to say she'd rather die young
Have the image of her poreless skin
Pressed neat in the photo album
Her lithe figure framed in black
She believed other people would preserve her through their memories
Banish her from time as if...
I watch my mother
No longer beautiful or charming
Her left arm shaking
Her mind a gone thing no longer doing her wrong
Wandering away from me in the mall
To kiss the hands of strangers...
The people who would have remembered her
Are dead now themselves
What remains is the shape of the ice cream cone
The feel of its crusty texture
The taste of Rocky Road
The fleeting sweetness
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Author's Note
This poem is published in my first poetry collection, "The Book I Never Read"
Other stories by Bobbi Lurie
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The subject of our mothers is always hard, always fraught with danger. This is stark and honest. Well done. *
Bobbi, the cow's tongue on the plate brought back a recent memory of hearing a story about a penis restaurant in Asia -- the restaurant served only kinds of animal penis -- and men alone dined there, thinking it enhanced their virility. Maybe it did! This is DARK, lady, a DARK and deep exam of her. I avoid that depth, usually, for practical reasons, but this is the shit. *
So hard to write about mothers past and present. Wonderful work, Bobbi.
A strong moment -
"My mother used to say she'd rather die young
Have the image of her poreless skin
Pressed neat in the photo album
Her lithe figure framed in black"
I like this piece, Bobbi.
Ann nailed it. Dark indeed. Reminds me of stuff I don't have the guts to think about. I admire your courage, Bobbi. Fav.
Bobbi,your work always touches me. I like the line " Her mind a gone thing no longer doing her wrong" and I empathize with you on the cows tongue thing....
A moving poem. Brave work.
"I watch my mother / No longer beautiful or charming"
Good writing, strong voice, insightful: 'Swallowed because I had to'
Bobbi, you dare to go where others only glimpse, if that. I honor your courage and the brilliance that comes through your poetic devices in this powerful piece.
Fave.
Wonderful, provocative, unsentimental, yearning. And then the last line just blew me away. *
Absolutely beautiful - haunting, mesmerizing. My favorite line:
"Her mind a gone thing no longer doing her wrong."
But so many great ones.
*
This is incredible and makes me uncomfortable in all the right ways.
Nice to meet your work, Bobbi.
this is incredible writing
favorite
Profoundly moving. Not just the subject matter. That is one beautiful first paragraph (verse?) The way you've wrapped the ice cream experience around the whole is poignant in the extreme. Well, well done.
A brave poem. "Her mind a gone thing no longer doing her wrong" is very moving.*
"The fleeting sweetness", yes!
I think you capture the situation and decline so well.
Read a personal memoir that said the same as yours, that even when the memories and functions go, there seems to be a personality and the moment still left for a while.
My family buys tongue meat too. I can't stand it. :)
Good poem!
wonderful. i was right there with you. there's a sense of merging with the mother as well as with all the peculiar props—the cow's tongue, the dripping ice cream— this poem spells unity in different and unforeseen ways.
Gorgeous. Well done X20.
"To kiss the hands of strangers..." This line, and so many - just right.
the detail in this takes my heart.
"What remains is the shape of the ice cream cone
The feel of its crusty texture
The taste of Rocky Road"
so sad, so good, and the way you open it with how the tongue still brings pleasure grabbed me hard, I think that is probably truly one of the last things on earth.
The sensuality of the tongue on ice cream in the beginning and end are wonderful, the image of the cow's tongue jarring, but also how she is failing in so many ways, her friends dead, and yet she still has that small but significant pleasure in her life. Beautifully wrought.
This is amazing, a true killer of a poem, the cow tongue made me cringe..
*