Shopping Cart
    items

      ←

      April 29, 2014Rough Ties: All Mothers Are SingleSusan Terris

      This isn’t epidurals, breastfeeding, or 2 a.m.
      white nights. This is about the long arc of letting go—

      single, partnered, or not—of what another generation
      called apron strings. Personally, I’ve never

      worn an apron. Still to protect a child, even one of
      thirty or forty, a mother often wishes for

      a sweaty palm tugging at rough ties or a hand
      tucked into her blossom-splashed pocket.

      Blossoming is the first time the child walks into the ocean
      in her flowered tank suit and doesn’t glance back.

      Look, is there any father in this picture calling, Be careful.
      Keep watching the incoming waves.       And when

      she turns away at Baker Beach, and the undertow
      sucks her down, who darts to grab

      her churning body in the surf. Fun, she said,
      as she coughed up seawater. Today, in the cove of

      an unpredictable ocean, I search for this girl-woman
      who has gone deep. She is out there, with

      no strings, and I—though married—am single.

      from #41 - Fall 2013

      Susan Terris

      “In some way, all mothers, as ‘Rough Ties’ says, are single. The mother often is the caretaker, worrier, and the go-to parent. Living with a husband with dementia, however, creates a new definition of what it means to be a single mother—my oldest child is 77. When I am writing, the question I ask myself most often is ‘Who cares?’ If my answer is ‘No one,’ that poem gets zapped. If the answer is ‘Many,’ I am willing to share it.”

      →

      Related