Five Poems by Wendy Freborg

 

SOME THINGS MY MOTHER MADE FOR ME

 

A new dress for each first day of school, 

dresses for ceremonies, dresses for parties, 

Halloween costumes, year after year,

so many dresses and even more skirts.

 

A dress for high school graduation,

dresses for college orientation,

many mini skirts, each from one yard of fabric,

a dress to wear under my graduation gown.

 

Clothes for interviews, clothes for work,

even my wedding gown and veil.

Curtains for our apartment,

a quilt for our bed.

 

My maternity clothes, 

quilts for my baby,

bibs for my baby,

cloth books and stuffed animals.

 

A Halloween wall hanging, 

ornaments for the tree,

aprons for my husband,

a robe for my son and a new one for me.

 

Dresses for a new job, 

a quilt for my son’s college dorm. 

placemats for my new round table,

an album of photos from all those first days of school.

 

Aprons for my son and his wife,

ornaments for their tree,

bibs for my grandchildren

quilts for my grandchildren.

 

She also made memories, 

a few brave decisions,

some secret sacrifices,

and a lot of good jokes.

 

 

ON DISCOVERING SHARED DIAGNOSIS

Yea, as I walked in this Valley of Death,

thinking my usual self-absorbed thoughts,

I did not expect to find an old friend 

stumbling in the same shadows,

bumping against the same rocks, 

looking, like me, for the light or the magic vial, 

trying, like me, to elude the dusk of life.

 

JUNIOR HIGH

 

By my report card, I succeeded,

But I was too obtuse or stubborn

(Immature, some said)

For the lessons of the corridor.

 

The other girls would giggle

and run with mincing steps,

ceding games to awkward boys.

I always felt a fool and did my best.

 

A social ignoramus, 

feeling shunned by boys and girls alike,

I desperately tried to learn

the lessons of the corridor.

 

Looking back now, I would trade

my algebra, my history and French

to free myself of what I did absorb

from the lessons of the corridor.

 

 

WAITING FOR YOU

Lying here in bed, supposedly asleep,

I wait for you to come to me.

I hear you moving in the other room.

I hear the click of your pencil

and the way the floorboards squeak beneath your feet.

The sounds you make when you move your chair,

As I lie here, waiting for you to come to me

so I can throw my arms around you,

press my head against your chest,

and say, “I’m sorry.”

 

WE HAVE A PROBLEM WITH MORNINGS

We have a problem with mornings.

The cold early air conflicts so sharply

with the comfortable warmth of our bodies side by side.

We know that our quiet love words will yield

to the harsh cries of life’s demands

as soon as we arise,

so we press still closer together,

trying to preserve the peaceful unity of night.

We have a problem with mornings. 

 

Wendy Freborg is a retired social worker and former editor who writes poetry and humour. Her work first appeared in print in 1964 when the magazine Ingenue published one of her poems. More recently, her poems have appeared in Rat’s Ass Review, Right Hand Pointing, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Misfit, and WestWard Quarterly and her humor in Little Old Lady Comedy and Defenestration. Her life includes one husband, one son, two grandchildren, enough friends, too many doctors and not enough dogs. Her pleasures are her family, crossword puzzles, learning new things, and remembering old times.