Photograph of my mother sitting on the steps - Marge Piercy

[Larry Robinson]

Photograph of my mother sitting on the steps

My mother who isn't anyone's
just her own intact and yearning
self complete as a birch tree
sits on the tenement steps.

She is awkwardly lovely, her face
pure as a single trill perfectly
prolonged on a violin, yet she
knows the camera sees her

and she arranges her body
like a flower in a vase to be
displayed, admired she hopes.
She longs to be luminous

and visible, to shine in the eyes
of it must be a handsome man,
who will carry her away--and he
will into poverty and an abortion

but not yet. Now she drapes
her best, her only good dress
inherited from her sister who dances
on the stage, around her legs

that she does not like
and leans a little forward
because she does like her breasts.
How she wants love to bathe

her in honeyed light lifting her
up through smoky clouds clamped
on the Pittsburgh slum. Blessed
are we who cannot know

what will come to us,
our upturned faces following
through the sky
the sun of love.

	- Marge Piercy