Poetic response to the “Absences Unfolded” prompt:
The peeler wobbles around the apple,
weakened by years of young helpers
scraping potatoes at Thanksgiving.
Layers scraped off: a cousin moved,
a lover died, a friend loses the numbers
of her days. One itches like sunburned skin,
the next gouges like a peeler cutting a spot
from a potato. Which cut is deep enough
for stitches, which leaves a scab
I should not pick? Selves peeled away:
I have been daughter, friend
spouse. What identity remains within
the frame of this newly exposed skin?
My mother-in-law, no longer
able to walk into the kitchen, rubbing
arthritic hands, asking “how can I help,”
sits, asks again, “And how are you doing?”
losing my answer as soon as spoken,
her deep-set habit of politeness shielding
a mind stripped of time and faces.
My list of those absent led to the thought that each one peels off some piece of the self. This had no shape until I thought of a potato peeler – and the rough work of young helpers. When I worked through the images of loss and asked what remains, the image of my mother-in-law came to mind, and it occurred to me that her ingrained good manners did, in fact, give her an identity, even in the loss of dementia. This only came to me in July and enabled me to complete a first typed draft. After that it was mostly tweaking.
Ellen Roberts Young’s third chapbook with Finishing Line Press, Transported, came out in 2021. She has two full-length collections, Made and Remade (Wordtech, 2014) and Lost in the Greenwood (Atmosphere, 2020). Recent publications include Slant, Oyster River Pages, Rockvale Review, and Caesura. www.ellenrobertsyoung.com
