Aphrodite
A pelican rocks on the water,
a ghostly glimmer in the moonlight.
A young woman pauses at the water?s edge,
seafoam lapping gently against her ankles.
She reaches for a shell shining in the sand;
her touch caresses the swirling water.
Scallops of rippling light
shimmer and radiate
from her long and lean dancer?s body
across the sea illuminating the moon itself.
A goddess glows in the waves.
Susan Caspers
DATA
Teacher as Writer Workshop
Summer 2002
Mother-In-Law
Across the kitchen table,
we talk about the weather,
about the children,
the cousins and the families.
I call you ?Mom,?
but the word is borrowed,
awkward in my mouth.
We skate through conversations
about appropriate topics,
circling the uncomfortable fissures
and crevices of family ice.
Borrowed money peers through the ice,
its green face dimly taunting us.
We thought we could be business-like.
But now your gifts are withdrawn
and our anniversary is forgotten.
You cried when I married your son.
I still don?t believe they were tears of joy.
So I remain politely
behind the fortressed walls I?ve raised,
believing that I won?t feel your barbs.
They deflect off my solid sides until
one hits your son and he turns to me in pain.
As he lances his swollen wound for relief,
the poison leaks onto me
varnishing my hardened walls and
thickening my polite polyurethane veneer.
Too many angry feelings unvoiced,
Too many hurts unhealed.
Because there was no war,
there isn?t any peace.
We face each other across the formica table,
talking about the weather,
polished and polite.
Susan Caspers
DATA
2003 ,1996
Reflections on an Empty House
My children have flown today
to friends? houses and baseball games.
They are flexing their wings, practicing
leaving and finding their way home.
Learning to be uncaged.
Have I given my children wings?
I want them back.
In the unending labor of birth, flapping eager wings gouge and scratch.
The vibrant softness of feathers is not always enough.
The wonder of the birth canal is flexibility:
when stretched, it gives.
But sometimes it only gives in tears.
Maybe we?re all waterfowl: ocean-going birds
forever creating our own salt seas.
I listen to the uncaged birds in my yard.
They don?t always sing.
Sometimes they cry.
Susan Caspers
DATA
2003, 1996