In the drawer were folded fine
batiste slips embroidered with scrolls
and posies, edged with handmade
lace too good for her to wear.

Daily she put on shmattehs
fit only to wash the car
or the windows, rags
that had never been pretty

even when new: somewhere
such dresses are sold only
to women without money to waste
on themselves, on pleasure,

to women who hate their bodies,
to women whose lives close on them.
Such dresses come bleached by tears,
packed in salt like herring.

Yet she put the good things away
for the good day that must surely
come, when promises would open
like tulips their satin cups

for her to drink the sweet
sacramental wine of fulfillment.

The story shone in her as through
tinted glass, how the mother

gave up and did without
and was in the end crowned
with what? scallions? crowned
queen of the dead place

in the heart where old dreams
whistle on bone flutes
where run-over pets are forgotten,
where lost stockings go?

In the coffin she was beautiful
not because of the undertaker's
garish cosmetics but because
that face at eighty was still

her face at eighteen peering
over the drab long dress
of poverty, clutching a book.
Where did you read your dreams, Mother?

Because her expression softened
from the pucker of disappointment,
the grimace of swallowed rage,
she looked a white-haired girl.

The anger turned inward, the anger
turned inward, where
could it go except to make pain?
It flowed into me with her milk.

Her anger annealed me.
I was dipped into the cauldron
of boiling rage and rose
a warrior and a witch

but still vulnerable
there where she held me.
She could always wound me
for she knew the secret places.

She could always touch me
for she knew the pressure
points of pleasure and pain.
Our minds were woven together.

I gave her presents and she hid
them away, wrapped in plastic.
Too good, she said, too good.
I'm saving them. So after her death

I sort them, the ugly things
that were sufficient for every
day and the pretty things for which
no day of hers was ever good enough.

Risk your life out for the crowd
And you get nothing
But more rebels and jealous people
And you get trapped

Controversies made up from nowhere
You still lonely and cry inside
When you try to hear from positive sides
You get stalled by lots of advices

If you respect your people
Don't expect anyone bless you

I'm too small
As small as a dot on the crumpled paper
I'm just one of thousands
Even invisible in this cruel world
Sheltered in a narrow and thin shells
Hiding behind the leaves which begin to change color
My first house
finally I was born
as something strange
I'm the ugly
My body covered with bristle
Feebly crawling along a twig
Gnaw the leaves around and make holes
Run away from the birds
Grappling with weaver ants
Makes me fell to the ground
Until my bristle loss and scattered
Only a worm greets
They hate me so
I could get killed, not all of them accept
until I'm stuck in another dimension
I'm the lonely hiding caterpillars
Imprisoned inside a small obsolete pouch
Trying to **** time
Struggling in the darkness to reach beauty
That's enough of this stopover
wade through the rigors of the long wait that handcuff
I was reborn
being different and they like me
Abundant happiness arrives
fly indefinitely with both my beautiful wings
penetrate malignancy to explore the horizon

I don't need doubters in my life
I already have every other kind
Of negative energy in it
Coming at me from all directions
Left right and centre
At work and in the street

Negativity effects us all
It is ripe and abundant
So,
If you don't believe in me
Then I won't believe in you
I'll shut my eyes and cover my ears
"Lalalalalalalalaaalaaa."
I can't hear you over all of this potential

Here's a ticket to never land
Now please kindly *******
If I say I'll do something
Best believe I'll do it
Hell,
I get off on this proving you wrong stuff
I can do it all day