by Tori Wilfred
Tori writes: I live in Akron, Ohio with my husband and daughter. I expect to graduate in Spring, 1998 with an Master of Arts degree in English literature from the University of Akron. I had a poem and a short-short story published in Waynessence, a artist journal from Wayne College. For me, writing releases emotions I cannot express any other way. I want my poems to be a door to open my reader's emotions as well. That is what a good poem does--it becomes an avenue for empathy.
I wrote "Thumbprints" because of the sad fate that my mother, who died at age 42, never saw my daughter. But it moves me to see my remembrances of my mother along side the memories I am making with my daughter. This poem is to honor them both and the connection between the three of us.
Fantasy
My body
stiffens
while I peer
on the face with no name,
like ice
dripping
on my heart
falling
on memories
that clutch
like spiders
chasing…searching
for half-remembered dreams,
masking
reality,
blinding
the truth—
the face
hidden
by rings of gold.
Thumbprints
Pages from my
scrapbook
tumble like weeds
across the desolate desert floor…
The faded ink
of a thumbprint
next to the tiny lines of a child's
Mom's and mine.
A life commenced; the other fulfilled.
Time to make memories began
I am the wind
playing through
the pages—a movie stub
from Cinderella (my first)
flickers like an old-fashioned
projector would on a white wall.
A
movie for only Mom and me
An "I'm
proud of you" letter
when I played my first solo
and another when
I graduated.
A flattened, faded flower
she sent when I turned twenty
to make me smile
as I turn another page--
The hospital
parking deck ticket
—Small pale pink with black letters
like a
flower in the early morning sun
The date and time
—even the
second—I went to witness
Her smile bleach away into the white sheets;
A tear stains the name of the hospital
The day I gave
life to my child
The bright wrist bands with our names
Rainbowed on
the same sheets
The other spirit had flown;
Two thumbprints—my
child's and mine
An existence beginning; the other fulfilled
Finishing
the pages with promises
Of another reminiscence;
for another life to
begin
