Getting Biopsy Results

By Patricia Fontaine

II
I suddenly want my
mother
and I put on a hat,
a coat and boots,
Because my mother
is in a hot fudge sundae
from Friendly’s
with coffee ice cream and pecans
it’s almonds
and so that it will
not be exclusively
eating her I ask for
pistachio too.

When the ice cream
is home and gone
I need to hear Van Morrison
covering “Motherless Child.”
I am determined to be
an unbroken mother
and say earnestly
into the phone
that someplace between
a rage and faith
I swing.

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