I prefer Endings
Please, please tell me
how the story ends before
we get there. I’ll race you
to the last line of the final
act. I’ll fight you for the heel
of a baguette, butt
of the roast. Let’s just begin
at the end. Start with key lime pie
and finish it. End the call
after hello, avoid the middle
because middles go on and on,
like swimming in a pool where the edge
keeps moving. Let’s agree, middles
are endless. As a child, I was drowning
in the middle of the pool—
my mother saved me.
A few years ago, I was drowning
in the middle of a lake—
my niece saved me.
I was born between an older brother
and a younger sister. My middle child
was stillborn. I prefer obituaries, life
in a single column, the end
always near. I’m always ready
for seasons to end. Enough of summer,
happy’s getting old. Turn off the snow,
I’m done with cold. I want so much to end—
root canals, painful periods, cruelty,
cancer, dementia, war. I’m guilty
of shooting an air rifle—the bullet ending
in the bullseye—and smiling. I’m guilty
of making to-do lists that end
before noon—guilty
of wanting it to be over
when my sister was dying
of cancer.
Undiagnosed
At eighty-six, my mother’s voice vibrates—
syllables elasticize into trembling song. But it's her shuffle
that pulls me in. Heels dragging
the sidewalk with her. Shoulders rounding
toward the ground. Mom, try to lift your feet,
I say. Stand up straight.
Be nice, I remind her.
Some families are defined
by a single member. The ever-cheerful mother
whose children never feel sad. The neglectful father
whose children never feel loved.
When I was a child,
my mother wiped the walls
with anger and misery. Our bodies learned vigilance—
my sister’s stomach aches,
my tightening chest.
Sensing a storm,
birds fly low to avoid falling
air pressure. Or they crouch under branches,
tuck their bills into their feathers
to stay warm. We tiptoed across the wool carpet,
turned invisible
under our covers.
But when I had nightmares, I ran
to my mother, fell asleep beside her
while she rubbed my back.
Some days, she’d sit in her robe staring
out the living room window.
She’d prick an avocado pit
with three toothpicks,
put it in a cup of water where it would take root
in the dark under the kitchen sink.
Lisa Caroline Friedman lives in Palo Alto, California. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in The Comstock Review, Connecticut River Review, The Lake, The Indianapolis Review, San Pedro River Review, Thimble, and Unbroken, among others. She holds a BA in English from Stanford University and is an MFA candidate in poetry at Antioch University.