My Mother Swam A River
My mother at 17
swam a winter river
in her best dress
bullets slamming the water
in the dark, spotlights
searching, soldiers shouting.
Arrived on a cold shore
where the waiting family
of the swimmers who
did not make it
beat her in their
grief and animal pain.
Her flight from east
to west began there,
between two Germanies
ripped in half
by the teeth of dictators.
She was freezing, but lived
and came to America
with me, in 1969.
Year of the moon landing.
Now 86, she watches
from Texas
while the old story
rises again like a sewer
backing up into her throat.
When he was elected
she said: watch,
he will try to muzzle the press.
Watch, he will fill
important slots with
his yes-men. Watch,
now, for the camps.
Tiny in old age, and having seen
so much, my mother
at the end of her life
sits in the rubble
of the myth of America,
terrified that I
will have to run
one day
in my best dress
in a hail of bullets
in winter.
