My Mother's Body Poem Rhyme Scheme

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	A
	-
The dark socket of the year	B
the pit the cave where the sun lies down	C
and threatens never to rise	D
when despair descends softly as the snow	E
covering all paths and choking roads	F
	-
then hawkfaced pain seized you	G
threw you so you fell with a sharp	H
cry a knife tearing a bolt of silk	I
My father heard the crash but paid	J
no mind napping after lunch	K
	-
yet fifteen hundred miles north	L
I heard and dropped a dish	M
Your pain sunk talons in my skull	N
and crouched there cawing heavy	O
as a great vessel filled with water	P
	-
oil or blood till suddenly next day	Q
the weight lifted and I knew your mind	R
had guttered out like the Chanukah	S
candles that burn so fast weeping	T
veils of wax down the chanukiya	G
	-
Those candles were laid out	U
friends invited ingredients bought	V
for latkes and apple pancakes	W
that holiday for liberation	X
and the winter solstice	Y
	-
when tops turn like little planets	Z
Shall you have all or nothing	T
take half or pass by untouched	A2
Nothing you got Nun said the dreydl	N
as the room stopped spinning	T
	-
The angel folded you up like laundry	O
your body thin as an empty dress	B2
Your clothes were curtains	C2
hanging on the window of what had	D2
been your flesh and now was glass	E2
	-
Outside in Florida shopping plazas	F2
loudspeakers blared Christmas carols	G2
and palm trees were decked with blinking	T
lights Except by the tourist	H2
hotels the beaches were empty	O
	-
Pelicans with pregnant pouches	F2
flapped overhead like pterodactyls	F2
In my mind I felt you die	I2
First the pain lifted and then	J2
you flickered and went out	U
	-
	-
	-
	-
I walk through the rooms of memory	O
Sometimes everything is shrouded in dropcloths	F2
every chair ghostly and muted	K2
	-
Other times memory lights up from within	L2
bustling scenes acted just the other side	M2
of a scrim through which surely I could reach	N2
	-
my fingers tearing at the flimsy curtain	X
of time which is and isn't and will be	O
the stuff of which we're made and unmade	J
	-
In sleep the other night I met you seventeen	O2
your first nasty marriage just annulled	P2
thin from your abortion clutching a book	Q2
	-
against your cheek and trying to look	Q2
older trying to took middle class	F2
trying for a job at Wanamaker's	F2
	-
dressing for parties in cast off	R2
stage costumes of your sisters Your eyes	F2
were hazy with dreams You did not	V
	-
notice me waving as you wandered	S2
past and I saw your slip was showing	T
You stood still while I fixed your clothes	F2
	-
as if I were your mother Remember me	O
combing your springy black hair ringlets	F2
that seemed metallic glittering	T
	-
remember me dressing you my seventy year	B
old mother who was my last dollbaby	O
giving you too late what your youth had wanted	T2
	-
	-
	-
	-
What is this mask of skin we wear	U2
what is this dress of flesh	V2
this coat of few colors and little hair	U2
	-
This voluptuous seething heap of desires	F2
and fears squeaking mice turned up	W2
in a steaming haystack with their babies	F2
	-
This coat has been handed down an heirloom	X2
this coat of black hair and ample flesh	V2
this coat of pale slightly ruddy skin	L2
	-
This set of hips and thighs these buttocks	F2
they provided cushioning for my grandmother	P
Hannah for my mother Bert and for me	O
	-
and we all sat on them in turn those major	P
muscles on which we walk and walk and walk	Y2
over the earth in search of peace and plenty	O
	-
My mother is my mirror and I am hers	F2
What do we see Our face grown young again	J2
our breasts grown firm legs lean and elegant	Z2
	-
Our arms quivering with fat eyes	F2
set in the bark of wrinkles hands puffy	O
our belly seamed with childbearing	T
	-
Give me your dress that I might try it on	A3
Oh it will not fit you mother you are too fat	B3
I will not fit you mother	P
	-
I will not be the bride you can dress	F2
the obedient dutiful daughter you would chew	G
a dog's leather bone to sharpen your teeth	C3
	-
You strike me sometimes just to hear the sound	D3
Loneliness turns your fingers into hooks	F2
barbed and drawing blood with their caress	F2
	-
My twin my sister my lost love	E3
I carry you in me like an embryo	G
as once you carried me	O
	-
	-
	-
	-
What is it we turn from what is it we fear	B
Did I truly think you could put me back inside	M2
Did I think I would fall into you as into a molten	X
furnace and be recast that I would become you	G
	-
What did you fear in me the child who wore	F3
your hair the woman who let that black hair	U2
grow long as a banner of darkness when you	G
a proper flapper wore yours cropped	G3
	-
You pushed and you pulled on my rubbery	O
flesh you kneaded me like a ball of dough	G
Rise rise and then you pounded me flat	B3
Secretly the bones formed in the bread	H3
	-
I became willful private as a cat	B3
You never knew what alleys I had wandered	S2
You called me bad and I posed like a gutter	P
queen in a dress sewn of knives	F2
	-
All I feared was being stuck in a box	F2
with a lid A good woman appeared to me	O
indistinguishable from a dead one	X
except that she worked all the time	I3
	-
Your payday never came Your dreams ran	J3
with bright colors like Mexican cottons	F2
that bled onto the drab sheets of the day	Q
and would not bleach with scrubbing	T
	-
My dear what you said was one thing	T
but what you sang was another sweetly	O
subversive and dark as blackberries	F2
and I became the daughter of your dream	K3
	-
This body is your body ashes now	L3
and roses but alive in my eyes my breasts	F2
my throat my thighs You run in me	O
a tang of salt in the creek waters of my blood	T2
	-
you sing in my mind like wine What you	G
did not dare in your life you dare in mine	M3

Marge Piercy

My Mother's Body Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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