my mother teaches me self-preservation
at the grocery store the bagger’s sharp
white smile his have a nice day
which my mother met tight-lipped
letting slip only a nod
in the car I called her mean.
she turned to me
her face open pulse of arterial anger:
he doesn’t care if I have a nice day
or not. not really.
my mother names each of her father’s sins
counts them like slick pearls beaded around
all their necks each of her siblings oysters
trying to make orbs of sky
between shell smooth flesh:
and now I don’t know whether they are
teeth or pearly bullets strung on a man’s
jaw and I don’t mind being
called mean.
my mother says:
with the same hand you
shuck an oyster or split garlic from its
skin, cup olive oil into your hair.
let the sweat fasten it in wash &
wake up shining this being only for you.
you don’t ever have to smile.
my mother has a line of sad, nice women
behind her to thank for this wisdom:
when to open when to close
when to let my hair down
whose nice to trust –
O mother, bless those women, and bless
what you loved and had to leave
behind to slip away your face still
your own your vessels behind it
still smooth.
Dr. Irène P. Mathieu is a pediatrician, writer, and public health researcher. She is the author of Grand Marronage (Switchback Books, 2019), which was selected as Editor’s Choice for the Gatewood Prize and runner-up for the Cave Canem/Northwestern book prize; orogeny (Trembling Pillow Press, 2017), which won the Bob Kaufman Book Prize; and the galaxy of origins (dancing girl press, 2014). Her poems have appeared in Narrative, Boston Review, Southern Humanities Review, Los Angeles Review, Callaloo, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. Irène is a poetry book reviewer for Muzzle Magazine and an editor for the Journal of General Internal Medicine’s humanities section. She has received fellowships from Fulbright, Callaloo, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and is a member of Jack Jones Literary Arts’ speakers bureau. Visit her at irenemathieu.com.