Three poems by Mary Robbins

She Never Came Home from the Beach

Mom’s feet were swollen like latex gloves filled with liquid 
propped on the arm of a wicker couch. It was June of ‘95. 

We were in Wrightsville – a rented condo in a high-rise on the beach, 
and she was leaking like she’d been pierced with pins. 

I don’t remember how many days she lasted before Dad drove her to Duke.
My sisters and I watched from the balcony as he helped her into the car. 

We were supposed to stay – enjoy the rest of the trip with Grandma. 
Dad moved into the hospital with Mom – we visited a few times, 

though it took me a while to go past the waiting room. 
Rear-facing in the back of Grandma’s station wagon, 

we’d recap the visits. I think she’s getting better, 
my sisters would say when they felt her squeeze a hand. 

So I finally went back and felt it for myself. Eyes closed, 
she didn’t see me, but they said she knew I was there.

Such a Disappointment

She was all together. Nails done, collar popped, 
never without her jewelry. Kept a bow in my hair,
matched my outfits with my younger sister – bangs 
trimmed, shirts tucked in. Decorated our rooms 
like the magazines – nothing hanging without a frame. 
Had brown eyes that missed nothing, was friends 
with everyone – said there was no point in lying – 
she knew everything already. Told my older sisters
not to hang out with what’s his face– he gets girls 
to suck his penis. Straightforward. Not mean, but 
set the fear of God in us. If she’d have known 

me junior year, cigarette burns in my jacket sleeves 
and dirty jean cuffs covering my feet, DIY 
double-pierced ears, plus the one in the cartilage I did 
while grounded – infected – red as my box-dyed hair.
Posters and magazine pages tacked and taped to the 
walls she’d painted peach, hills of candle wax 
melted on my dresser, stickers collaging my bedframe. 
Asleep with my head on the desk, drooling through 
chemistry, every single day. Failing. Suspended. 
Lying. Lying. Lying. My teachers so suspicious, 
they didn’t believe she was dead – not until an 
honor student I’d known since kindergarten 
confirmed it. My pupils dilated, eyes red, 
hungry but not eating. With friends old enough 
to live alone or in homes with no parents or parents 
who bought us liquor and saw us off to raves saying, 
only take pills from people you know, sweetie. 
My dad, middle-school sister, and my emotional support 
twenty-four-year-old boyfriend beside me at our dinner table 
every night. And that was after the one I used to visit in jail.
I never would’ve gotten away with any of it. I would 
have never even tried.

 

To Have Felt My Mother’s New Hair

Had I been older, 
I’d have 
laid her head in my lap, 
let my fingers float 
along the river of scars 
cutting through 
her field of fuzz.
Let her buzzcut 
tick-tock against my palm 
while she slept, 
a tenderness 
I’ve shown 
only to lovers.

But at nine,
I covered her in an afghan 
and dimmed the lights
while she napped.
She stirred on the couch, 
as I walked away.
Put the light back on, 
she said. 
I’m only resting 
my eyes.

 

Mary Robbins is a writer born, raised and currently living in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her work is inspired by growing up in suburban North Carolina in the 1990s and early 2000s. She has previously been published in South Carolina Review, Plorkology and Turning Leaf Journal.