After 37 Years My Mother Apologizes for My Childhood by Sharon Olds

After 37 Years My Mother Apologizes for My Childhood

When you tilted toward me, arms out

like someone trying to walk through a fire,

when you swayed toward me, crying out you were

sorry for what you had done to me, your

eyes filling with terrible liquid like

balls of mercury from a broken thermometer

skidding on the floor, when you quietly screamed

Where else could I turn? Who else did I have? The

chopped crockery of your hands swinging toward me, the

water cracking from your eyes like moisture from

stones under heavy pressure, I could not

see what I would do with the rest of my life.

The sky seemed to be splintering, like a window

someone is bursting into or out of, your

tiny face glittered as if with

shattered crystal, with true regret, the

regret of the body. I could not see what my

days would be, with you sorry, with

you wishing you had not done it, the

sky falling around me, its shards

glistening in my eyes, your old, soft

body fallen against me in horror I

took you in my arms, I said It’s all right,

don’t cry, it’s all right, the air filled with

flying glass, I hardly knew what I

said or who I would be now that I had forgiven you.