Amelia Earhart (public domain)
My Mother, 1937
Beth Kanell
Bewildered farm girl with a dying mother (cancer, too late):
ignored, she clung to Lucky Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight,
hoarded newspaper articles about Amelia Earhart,
refused to beg her cocky cousins for attention--
she could claim the future, sky high, better than theirs. When
death landed as predicted, love retreated into
the unreal hardness of one frozen knuckle (they made her
kiss it). Amelia, she told herself. Amelia would do this
without falling. Her cousins watched, whispered.
Amelia, a borrowed badge, a resonant insistence. Next month
her father said, “Your mother’s cousin Ruth arrives on Tuesday,
to be your new mother.” Thrust a photo into her hand. That night
she lay sleepless in the bed, next to where her real mother
used to sit, stroke her hair, sing good night. The next evening
the radio hissed, coughed, spat out news: Earhart lost. Airplane
vanished. Fog. Feared drowned. Lost, lost, lost.
“Stepmother” came just like Hansel and Gretel’s story, strict, tall,
declining soft clothes or embraces. Never call her Mommy!
Be a lady, little Joan. No more running or jumping. No lady wears
goggles or a helmet. Gloves are for Sundays. Not air controls.
Each night, after dark, her heart and mind refused to behave.
Flying, falling, weeping.
Beth Kanell
Bewildered farm girl with a dying mother (cancer, too late):
ignored, she clung to Lucky Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight,
hoarded newspaper articles about Amelia Earhart,
refused to beg her cocky cousins for attention--
she could claim the future, sky high, better than theirs. When
death landed as predicted, love retreated into
the unreal hardness of one frozen knuckle (they made her
kiss it). Amelia, she told herself. Amelia would do this
without falling. Her cousins watched, whispered.
Amelia, a borrowed badge, a resonant insistence. Next month
her father said, “Your mother’s cousin Ruth arrives on Tuesday,
to be your new mother.” Thrust a photo into her hand. That night
she lay sleepless in the bed, next to where her real mother
used to sit, stroke her hair, sing good night. The next evening
the radio hissed, coughed, spat out news: Earhart lost. Airplane
vanished. Fog. Feared drowned. Lost, lost, lost.
“Stepmother” came just like Hansel and Gretel’s story, strict, tall,
declining soft clothes or embraces. Never call her Mommy!
Be a lady, little Joan. No more running or jumping. No lady wears
goggles or a helmet. Gloves are for Sundays. Not air controls.
Each night, after dark, her heart and mind refused to behave.
Flying, falling, weeping.