print previewback FELICITY SHEEHY
My Mother Has Had It with the Tragedies
of other people’s lives. Oprah’s Book Club,
tearjerkers, Anna’s jump or Sophie’s choice—
she wants none of it, prefers soft-hued paperbacks
and late-night soaps, gazebo-covered albums
that tinkle with guitars. She reads the news
only Sundays, thumbs off NPR, flips channels
like a Vegas star, gambling a win. She shreds
the pamphlets sent in the mail (those starving
dogs and puff-bellied children), starts at any knock,
speeds by any accident, passing passersby.
Halloween, she skips the candles, carves no
pumpkins, hangs a Santa on the door. I don’t
need ghosts, she tells me. Long ago, she left
the church, its many Jobs, its weeping Marys,
its dying youth. She knows nothing happens
for a reason and wants nothing to happen:
no tears, no tricks, no tragic turns. I watch
her like this, thick robed, head bowed,
poking the hearth with a stick. We’ll read
through the night, she and I, and winter
will harden its hold, and still the fire will kick
in its chest, like a heart, red and cold. 
Apollo Catches Daphne
At Ten
Makeup
My Mother Has Had It with the Tragedies