The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus Read Online Free PDF

in the butt.
    Bristling like iron filings
    whenever I walk into the room.
    Glowering at me
    when I speak to her.
    Slamming around the house
    like a racket ball.
    She pretty much
    can’t tolerate
    a single thing
    I do.
    I tell myself not to take it personally,
    calmly remind myself that she has to think
    I’m an incredibly irritating parent
    so she’ll be able to bear leaving in September.
    But then it occurs to me: maybe I actually
    am an incredibly irritating parent.
    And a shudder sweeps through
    the sudden canyon in my chest.
    A second later,
    she growls past me and out the front door,
    crashing it shut behind her
    like a prison gate.
    What a bitch,
    I find myself thinking.
    I can hardly wait
    till she leaves for college.
    But then a new revelation dawns:
    maybe I have to think
    that she’s incredibly irritating
    so that I’ll be able to stand separating from her.
    And maybe she knows this.
    Of course she does! She’s only
    acting this way to make it easier for me
    to say good-bye to her come September.
    What a dear sweet wonderful
    darling daughter! I think to myself.
    How am I going to bear it
    when she leaves for college?

TRASHED
    Heaving the cutting board
    into the bin,
    suddenly thinking
    how like it I am—
    useless and warped,
    shredded and old,
    scarred from too many
    dull thwops of the blade,
    scuffed and stained,
    coming unglued—
    thinking of all
    the mistakes I’ve made.

IN JUST A FEW MORE DAYS
    My daughter
    will no longer
    be living under
    my roof.
    The thin neck of life’s hourglass
    used to seem so mercifully clogged.
    But now the sand races through it
    like a rabbit late for a date.
    No time left to impart motherly wisdom.
    No time left to tell her all those deep things,
    those profound things that I should have been
    telling her all these years.
    The weight of my failure
    nearly flattens all four of my tires
    as I drive around town doing errands
    while listening to Little Women on CD.
    Now those girls had a mother.
    My own impoverished daughter
    had to snatch at the random bits
    I tossed her way:
    â€œIf you pick your zits they’ll leave scars.”
    â€œNever wash reds with whites.”
    â€œDon’t pat strange dogs
    till you let them sniff your fingers.”
    What was I thinking,
    frittering away all those years?
    Now—
    there’s no time left.

BUT HOW CAN THAT BE POSSIBLE?
    How can Samantha
    be getting ready to leave home already,
    when she’s only just arrived?
    How can seventeen years have passed
    since Michael and I carried our nestling
    across the threshold?
    The memory of that day,
    the trembling splendor of it,
    seems never to fade…
    We tucked Samantha into the basket
    we’d feathered with fleece, then hovered
    like a pair of wonder-struck doves,
    spellbound by each smile, each grimace,
    each frown that flickered like candlelight
    across her luminous face.
    Bewitched by every blink of her eyes,
    beguiled by every yawn,
    charmed by each luxurious stretch,
    we laced our fingers together,
    marveling at our little bird’s
    tiny chest—
    the way it kept
    rising and falling,
    rising and falling,
    each
    breath
    a masterpiece.

SAMANTHA WAS AN INCREDIBLE BABY
    Fabulous
    from the moment
    she was conceived!
    And such a thoughtful little embryo…
    While all the other mothers-to-be leaned over
    the rolling ship’s rails of their pregnancies
    retching up their saltines,
    Sam took me sailing on a glassy sea.
    She polished me
    from the inside out
    till people said I glowed
    like a crystal ball;
    cast some kind of
    spell over my scalp
    so, for the first time in my life,
    I actually had a mane.
    She inhabited my body
    like a perfect roommate—
    happy to have
    whatever I served up for dinner,
    content to let me
    hold the remote
    when we sat together
    surfing the channels.
    I felt her surging within me,
    felt her head nudging
    the taut bowstrings of my rotunda,
    and felt so grateful that she’d chosen
    me.

AND