Robert Riche

TO MY MOTHER

Spread on the rack
    by that obscene disease, bones twisted,
guts of the family
    drawn into the winding wheel,
beauty was torn,
    lives chewed apart.

As the mechanism proceeded,
    doctors in white coats
experimented with white mice, and
    stuffed your feet into iron shoes,
then cracked your knees to straighten the legs,
    encased them for months in plaster casts.

Your agony, unfairly, infected the house.
    Father, first to catch it, roamed
like a patient in a sanitarium
    determined to find his former bride,
    unable to recognize
the stranger stretched on a board
    with weights and pulleys wrenching her apart.

I hated him for his cruel indifference.
    I hated you for turning him
into the brute that he became,
I saw your pain
    as an endless plague,
our lives shut off, quarantined,
    because you were not normal,
like mothers were supposed to be.

In India there are cults of men who crawl
    for miles on knees and beat naked flesh
with whips and thorns to atone for sins.
I have seen this myself,
    and I know it is done in Spain and Mexico and
at Lourdes, and possibly other places.
    And though I end up thinking
    it no doubt is foolish
I would gladly join them in this rite if it would dispel
the guilt that follows me everywhere.

I wish I could say there was some wisdom
that grew out of this.
    You who could hardly sit up in bed
    had the strength of courage and dignity
    to endure.
To think of it today is to choke
on endless shame.

I am simply guilty.
Mother,
forgive me
     for holding back a love
         that might have eased your pain.

Robert Riche is a recipient of a NEA grant, Connecticut Foundation for the Arts grant, Norman Mailer Writers Colony scholar, Breadloaf Writers Conference scholar, He is a published novelist and short story writer, and has written for the stage and film, has published two poetry chapbooks and his poetry appears in many literary magazines.