What Might Kill My Mother
Honorable Mention – COUNTERCLOCK Emerging Writer’s Awards, Poetry
Michael Frazier
Sunkist orange soda A spoon
left in the sink overnight Sweat
stains Country Sweet Chicken
relocating across the street
Fluorescent-eyed deer
during her A.M. commute Anatomy
& Physiology at community college Debt
with no diploma to show
Rochester’s lake-effect snow Black ice
laid in the night Three doubles
back-to-back Her nursing home
residents spitting
nigger girl running
their sored fingers
through her permed hair
Her knees ankles
sciatic nerve
retiring before she does Men
who mistake gudnite for come over
An empty nest closing in
like a grave A dealer’s bullet
engraved with her brother's name
settling for her The prophecy
you will save your family
returning at 2 A.M. night
after night The women
who blow up her phone who make her
everyone’s mother
they bring their sons ask, can you do it?
Again? How you raise
two black boys
on your own?
Poet’s Statement
This poem started off as an exercise to deal with my anxiety regarding the inevitability of my mother’s death. So that my anxiety wouldn’t lord over me, I wrote a list of what could possibly kill her as a way to put my worries into perspective—shrink them. I didn’t intend for this to be a poem I would share publicly, until my mother initiated a conversation about what to do if the other were to die. I felt uncomfortable discussing this, as if talking about it would hasten the future. But by sharing her fears so honestly, she created space for me to also be honest and share my poem. When I finished reading, she went silent—I thought I had hurt her. Then she laughed and started to thank God, as if I wasn’t present anymore. She then said that hearing all the obstacles she’s survived, reminded her how good He has been, and how strong she has been throughout her life. What I thought was taboo and unshareable, was regarded as encouragement and testimony. I was reminded to see God in all things, not just what’s easily palatable.
about the writer
Michael Frazier is a poet and teacher based in Kanazawa, Japan. He received his BA from NYU, where he was the 2017 poet commencement speaker and a co-champion of CUPSI. He’s performed at Nuyorican Poets Café, Lincoln Center, and Gallatin Arts Festival, among other venues. A staff reader for The Adroit Journal and an alumnus of Callaloo, his poems appear in Construction, Visible Poetry Project, Day One, and elsewhere. He was most recently named runner-up for the Construction Lit Poetry Contest and a Brooklyn Poets Fellow. Ask him about his favorite anime and what Christ has done in his life.