I Urged Mom to Tell

I
Urged
Mom
to
Tell

---

Oh,
it was.

It was

a challenging write
was 1991 (corrected
from 1989). For me.

Spent
a fullish day on it,
I did.

Really.

Probably 14-16
hours. At least.

---

I whittle at its margins,
sometimes even truss it/lace it
down its center.

I so want it right. So want it. Or
at least right enough.

---

The injury’s a sort of elephant
in my life. African
probably. You know, with
those enormous ears.

Always
with me, it trumpets,
flaps its monster ears
like huge fat flat
fleshy palm fans,

shakes
the ground walking. Wants
attention.

Craves it,
demands it.
Insists.

That it be not
taken for granted.

Nor
ignored.

I suspect it will always be.

With me,
I mean.

---

A couple years

it was
before

I could formulate a good-enough
sentence. A passable sentence.

One
understood
by others.

One
truly understood. I mean
orally. I mean a sentence pronounced aloud

that
matched up
with what
my brain
wanted
my tongue
to come
out with.

---

Strange
that people think they understand
what you’re saying.

Or
even
trying
to say.

When they don’t.

---

The writing,
forget it.

---

My eyes would suddenly
cross. On their own.

Involuntarily.
Unaccountably.

Hardly
ever
happens
nowadays.

Hardly
ever.

---

Diabetes
mellitus,

I was told I had it,
told about a month post-accident.

Some say the injury prompted/provoked
my sugar problem.

Although
I’m uncertain even now
about
the truth of that.

---

Spent years
reversing words
in midspeak
midsentence.

---

Other things crowded in,
jostled, pushed, shoved,
took their prickly places

in long lines.

Things too
numerous
to cite.

Too many
fires burned out
of control.

They would make a litany.

Would amount
to a dirge,
a keening.

Perhaps even a wallowing.

---

It was the same
as if I'd had
a regular stroke. The same.
The exact same. No different.

No
difference.

---

My mother,
a number of years before her death,
sustained a stroke. Of the classic
kind, you know.
And after her astonishing near recovery,
I urged her
to tell people what it was like. What
it had been like.

Because … how else would they know?

She
refused,
of course.

Of course
she
refused.

She would not.

I thought she could share things
of value. Of importance.
That real people could learn
from her.

Being that she'd recovered far
beyond what the doctors predicted possible.

Miles beyond.

She
refused.

---

Another
run-of-the-mill 
hero unsung she was.

Really.
Actually.

Just
another
ordinary
hero.

Who just happened
to be my mom.

---

As a matter of fact,
they are all around us.

Oodles and oodles of
ordinary heroes.

I do think we need to turn them over---

like mossy rocks
lain long in rich soil---

and take a careful look at what's beneath.