My Mother Always Warned Me - Elizabeth Weld Nolan

My mother always warned me
to talk about sports with boys – she hated sports --
to pluck my eyebrows – hers were black as clouds --
to keep surfaces smooth – no outbursts, no smart mouth.
Her rage seeped sideways into rivulets of wit,
runnels of sarcasm, ripples of silliness,
diverting the flow of conversation.

`Why are you always poking into things?’’
This from a woman who came of age
in the early 20th-century American South
when brilliance in women and smarts in girls
embarassed the family, weakened the men,
requiring courtesy to a fault, a fault line,
even. But the women knew each other
for their shining minds, writing letters
and books, their stars underground
until the times eased, and she went north.

My mother told me some sweetest times
came while sitting, knitting, beside
a husband football-struck,
hearing not a violent game,
but the tick-tock of her happy marriage.