You know Who You Are...

You Know Who You Are

I stand at the gate of the high-school
Nordic race and my mind is reeling after
Overhearing an aside from the guidance
Counselor to a star parent.
“I didn't know he had it in him.”

My son. Sixteen and lanky.
A junior with falling grades.
He works late nights as a cook and I,
The welfare mom, work two part-time jobs,
A full-time student and mother of four in
A house with no running water.

I stand there with a taste of gall on my bitten tongue,
What do you know of spirit and sacrifice,
Of small, desperate Christmases where the children's
Forgiveness is the gift in the darkness?
And his father lies somewhere mixing alcohol
With antidepressants, lost in a post-Vietnam Era fog.

And I am the ache in the throat of sorry
For a boy coming into manhood alone but
For the kind-hearted coach he runs for,
Breathing the frozen air on the mountain,
Skating free.

Someday I'll come out of the closet of poverty where
Dignity is silence and a woman stands alone;
Cold-footed and invisible in a dark coat
With ripped pockets where her red-tipped
Fingers pretend comfort.