Pink Tutu

She couldn’t save her

Nobody could

It was an impossible job to fulfill

She danced as fast as she could

Wearing shiny patent leather tap shoes then

Tiny dainty ballet slippers accented by frilly pink tutus

She played piano sweetly

The notes floating around the house

Attaching themselves to Clemente sonatinas and Mozart sonatas then

Recitals filled with Schumann and Bach

She read hundreds of books

Journeying though thousands of fantastic worlds

Keeping up a running travelogue then

Earned decent grades

Had good friends

Still she couldn’t save her

The sweaty hand always on her arm

While walking down long halls

Or through the mall

The anxiety kept barely beneath the surface

Your mother was never as happy as when she brought you home her aunt said

The baby that was supposed to fix her

Bring her joy and normalcy

The girl child charged with those herculean tasks

Fix your mother

Make her better

Fill her world with joy

Crowd out the angst

But she couldn’t save her

Perhaps to the disappointment of others

Always put to the test

Do it small blond girl they’d say

Make your mother happy

We demand it

But she couldn’t save her

No one could

Not a tiny baby

Not a small child

She tried

Unwittingly

Just by being and doing

Unknowingly knocking her young head against an impenetrable wall

And one day

At eight years old

Her mother told her that she'd have to get herself ready and off to school all on her own

Mrs. Glazer doesn’t get up for Gary in the mornings any more she told her and I am not getting up for you

And so she fixed her own breakfast

Packed her lunch

And got herself to school on time

Never knowing how odd that was

Thinking nothing of it

Just doing it

Being independent

But she still couldn’t save her

©kcasady2014

Coming Up Short

And she’s not dead yet

At least not as far as she knew

Someone would call her she hoped

She had not been to see her dying aunt

Never could find the time

Always easy to come up with an excuse

And then she'd think

Pay a visit

Do it out of respect for your dead mother

Do it as her proxy in this life

Maybe

But perhaps not

She’d spoken to her cousin

Should I visit her she’d asked

No point he said

She’s not aware of her surroundings

No point indeed

She hadn’t seen her in a year

Not since the last family funeral

Her aunt sat next to her holding a glass of wine

Supping on secrets and confessions she'd said

Your mother was never as happy as she was when she brought you home

Spilling a bit of claret with her words

Of course she’d thought

Why not

Tis the job of an adopted child to make her new mother happy

At all times

Never wavering

Because to do otherwise might have dire consequences

Still she knew she'd be terribly sad when her aunt died

Not out of love

Not out of loss

But because a touch point with the past will have disappeared

A reach back in time vanished

A voice of family history gone

She’d never asked her aunt about her adoption

Her answer could never be trusted

Too many filters

Too much baggage

Among her cousins she was the only blond with tiny breasts

Not a balabusta like the rest of the Jewish women of her family

An outsider then

Welcomed 

Judged

Compared

Usually coming up short

Of course she’d attend the funeral

And the gathering afterwards

Putting her head together with her cousins

Talking about this and that

Remembering

Chatting up her aunt

But a visit…

©kcasady2014

Red Sky

The sky is red she whispered to her daughter 

Red from the beginning

Since the creation of the world

When matter came together 

Forming our globe

Mixing the elements

Bending the heavens to the scarlet vault above our heads

The sky is blue she whispered to her mother

The sky wraps us in ruby curtains she said to her daughter

Pregnant with crimson rain

Drenching us with sanguine droplets of dew

Soaking our clothes

Coloring us russet

Transforming us into ripe cherries

The sky is blue she said to her mother

The sky glowed vermillion at night she shouted at her daughter

Dotted with rose stars and a cerise moon

Through the darkness our garnet faces glittered

Wine flushed from claret and burgundy

As we danced naked beneath the bloodshot cosmos

The sky is blue she shouted at her mother

And strode away fading into cerulean haze

©kcasady2014