by Jenny Liou

I’m worried about surviving
because it hasn’t happened as we’d hoped.
I wanted the guilt of excess absolved
and it’s doubled.  What is there to do

but call my mother who must know what it’s like
because last time I called, she described
the morning she spent gathering garbage,
wind-strewn out of the can

into the trees.  She’d thought she’d
done well, dealt with it already, as I sometimes
think she thinks of me.  And now she’s cleaning up
again. She’s worried she’ll worry me with her complaints.

My mother’s parents live, they make her believe,
in mild but vocal suffering probably
beyond our imagining.  Their mistakes are indignations—
the one about grandma working overtime at the Y,

earning money for two pairs of good shoes
then one day  wearing one of each because
morning was dark and she hadn’t been looking
and now she’s looking.