How to be the Mother of a Missing Daughter
Mara Lee Grayson
I.
Don’t cry, but make sure that your eyes are wet
when reporters ask about hers: doleful,
pupil-stained, and haunted. Don’t get upset
when politicians call her beautiful.
Listen to publicists; ignore the pull
to read stories about other missing
women. Stand rigid as a pinstripe. Bring
tissues; don’t use them. Proclaim innocence
if tables turn. Wear blue, not black, and cling
to hope; bear the blanket of her absence.
II.
Somebody will ask: What type of woman
lets her daughter disappear? Do they think
you closed your eyes or gave your permission,
or that she’d come to you at all? You’ll sink
into whirlpools of guilt and shame that tinker
with you then toss you back out alone.
You’ll wonder how long her blonde hair has grown,
if she’s changed her name by now, if maybe
you did close your eyes, if only you’d known
better, if she’ll always be your baby.
III.
But whatever you do, don’t cry; they’ll say
you’re unstable, that of course you could kill
your own child; rodents do it every day.
The public will vilify you. And still,
you shouldn’t cry. A woman writer will
do an exposé on lingering post-
partum depression; The Washington Post
will publish it online. Twitter users
will suggest therapy; a few, not most,
will warn that doesn’t work for abusers.
IV.
Start to notice things you’ve never noticed
before, like how girls hold their fathers’ hands
differently from their mothers’. Make a list
of everything you see: the narrow bands
of light that stripe out as the sun expands
across the bedroom wall. The trapezoid
of your husband’s shoulders, how he avoids
answering the most benign of queries,
Don’t cry, but make sure that your eyes are wet
when reporters ask about hers: doleful,
pupil-stained, and haunted. Don’t get upset
when politicians call her beautiful.
Listen to publicists; ignore the pull
to read stories about other missing
women. Stand rigid as a pinstripe. Bring
tissues; don’t use them. Proclaim innocence
if tables turn. Wear blue, not black, and cling
to hope; bear the blanket of her absence.
II.
Somebody will ask: What type of woman
lets her daughter disappear? Do they think
you closed your eyes or gave your permission,
or that she’d come to you at all? You’ll sink
into whirlpools of guilt and shame that tinker
with you then toss you back out alone.
You’ll wonder how long her blonde hair has grown,
if she’s changed her name by now, if maybe
you did close your eyes, if only you’d known
better, if she’ll always be your baby.
III.
But whatever you do, don’t cry; they’ll say
you’re unstable, that of course you could kill
your own child; rodents do it every day.
The public will vilify you. And still,
you shouldn’t cry. A woman writer will
do an exposé on lingering post-
partum depression; The Washington Post
will publish it online. Twitter users
will suggest therapy; a few, not most,
will warn that doesn’t work for abusers.
IV.
Start to notice things you’ve never noticed
before, like how girls hold their fathers’ hands
differently from their mothers’. Make a list
of everything you see: the narrow bands
of light that stripe out as the sun expands
across the bedroom wall. The trapezoid
of your husband’s shoulders, how he avoids
answering the most benign of queries,
and offers no words to describe the void
you notice between the fronds of palm trees.
V.
Returning from another press conference,
notice the web of rockfall mesh along
the freeway. Crane your neck in reverence
as you drive past, knowing however strong
or thick the netting that contains the long
stretch of rock wall, there is no chance
it won’t come down eventually. Fits
of rage and impotence swell and give birth
behind your eyes. Don’t try to quell them; it’s
futile, this trying to hold back the earth.
you notice between the fronds of palm trees.
V.
Returning from another press conference,
notice the web of rockfall mesh along
the freeway. Crane your neck in reverence
as you drive past, knowing however strong
or thick the netting that contains the long
stretch of rock wall, there is no chance
it won’t come down eventually. Fits
of rage and impotence swell and give birth
behind your eyes. Don’t try to quell them; it’s
futile, this trying to hold back the earth.
Mara Lee Grayson’s poetry has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Tampa Review, Nimrod, and other literary journals and has been nominated for the Best of the Net and Pushcart Prizes. An award-winning scholar of rhetorics of racism and antisemitism, Grayson is the author or editor of five books of nonfiction. Originally from Brooklyn, New York, Grayson holds an MFA from The City College of New York and a PhD from Columbia University and currently resides in New Jersey. Find her on social media @maraleegrayson.
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