Driving Home From Mother's House
As I drove through the bower
of old oak trees
scanning 68th and 20th avenues northeast
I was scared by the moon.
It was so low in the sky that night
I thought it would smack me in the face.
I tried to turn the wipers on,
but strands of hair white as paste
covered the window like thick rain.
A woman's mouth stretched open
in a silent scream. Bent fingers clawed
until they reached my chest.
Some nights I lose my way home.
Esther Altshul Helfgott is a Seattle writer & teacher. She
edits The
Psychoanalytic Experience: Analysands Speak, an on-line anthology
of voices written from the client's perspective. She holds a Ph.D. in
history from the University of Washington, where she wrote a thesis on
the politics and poetry of Holocaust poet Irena Klepfisz. Esther's work
has appeared in numerous in-print & on-line journals. She is the author
of The Homeless One: A Poem in Many Voices (KotaPress, 1999) a play about
homelessness & schizophrenia. She invites you to peruse the following
websites:
http://www.itsaboutimewriters.homestead.com
http://poetrydialogue.homestead.com/Index.html
http://www.itsaboutimewriters.homestead.com/Sept112001coverpge.html
Poem: "Driving Home From Mother's
House"