Mother, In the Raw
by
Laurie Kolp
Laurie Kolp
Laurie Kolp lives in Southeast TX with her husband and three children. Her poems have appeared in the 2015 Poet's Market, Diane Lockward's The Crafty Poet, and numerous print and online journals. Upon the Blue Couch
, Laurie's complete collection of mostly biographical poems, is available on Amazon.
She cares not that she's lying there
naked as a newborn babe, shoulders
barely covered by thin sheets
all modesty wisped away
like an autumn leaf
the color of her hair
in better times I'd watch her
sitting at the baby grand
composed and eloquent,
her long fingers
waltzing across the keys
grazioso while her body
swayed to the melody
as if the piano and she
were one. sometimes
passion moved the bench
an inch or two, but after
each last verse, she'd stand
and curtsy. she was on fire.
Now she's lost control
of what her hands might do,
her paralytic legs are bone
she cares not that she's lying there
naked as a newborn babe, shoulders
barely covered by thin sheets
I wonder if she knows
she's as beautiful today,
dying in that bed,
as she was back when
the ebony and ivories
exhumed such music
from within.
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