Ragged Claws Scuttling
In Memorium Materam Meam
On paydays my father, back when he was a bachelor,
would fry up lobster tails in his mother's kitchen.
Fond he was of them and fond of Etta, so wedding her
she became "Lobster" by sweet association.
Enhoused, bemoaning her leg, she'd drag the wash through
the sheet-metal door and pin it to the clothes-line.
She made those days seem a sheltered seabed; cod flew
above like traffic. Spooked by a locust, I'd whine
and nose her skirt. She was Mother Lobster,
and I, cautious little crab, clung to her.
Now once I grew bolder, lame, she couldn't keep up.
I'd catch Rusty in the pantry, raiding the graham crackers
and sucker-punch him from behind. Chasing, she'd flail
her broken yardstick to measure our misbehavior
as we'd stream out, plankton in the tide, leaving her behind,
while Joyce skipped in the highway, chortling to the gods.
Once she posted some rules, complete with misspellings:
"Be good al daye." Shame to say, we weren't overawed.
Our mother, our measure, a lobster,
and we, dreadful little crabs scraped 'gainst her.
So we grew wild, with wild kid regrets, regretting,
yes, all that we would be ashamed to see her see
and much that we could not resist before her showing.
Yet even we grew up, heeled by that odd mercy
of distresses self-wrought, tumbling self-discernments
to us, drops dancing in the sea that dwarfs ourselves.
Yet how must this have left Mother Lobster,
her little crabs feeling our ways without her?
When Clark closed we crammed a U-Haul with all they possessed.
I waved off her bittersweet grin at driveway's end,
then scurried to landlocked Ann Arbor. Then out West.
Now I raise my own scrabbers, dusted by the ocean.
Russ-T entered Navy, fared well on Asian tours,
while Joyce stayed close, sharing her mother's simple joys:
pancakes at the Legion, mountain drives though pine-furred contours.
But Death has sucker punched both Mom and us, its toys.
She did her part, and did us right, this Lobster,
honored Mother. Now must we
mournful, grateful larvae
let loose her.