{"id":2154,"date":"2014-04-22T16:47:17","date_gmt":"2014-04-22T16:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=2154"},"modified":"2014-09-07T13:27:50","modified_gmt":"2014-09-07T13:27:50","slug":"dear-mother-merit-ohare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=2154","title":{"rendered":"DEAR MOTHER – Merit O’Hare"},"content":{"rendered":"

The fledglings, how do they do it? And the new-furred rabbits,
\nemerging from the nest? Something amiss<\/em>
\nis what the air, electric, must warn the starlings;<\/p>\n

the rabbits, they leave at twilight
\nand live, at first, among the foxgloves, seeking surrogates
\nin the cold white blossoms, becoming accustomed that way<\/p>\n

to solitude. A week after I stood in the middle of a field
\nin Central Park, watching the sky darken with the rain
\nthat would make it lush again<\/p>\n

and listening to my father on the phone, three states away,
\nas he told me chemotherapy for six months, radiation for four<\/em><\/p>\n

and a week after I took a taxi home, watching side streets
\nsplit off from Broadway like lifelines I couldn\u2019t follow,<\/p>\n

already imagining knots of hair clogging the drain,
\nfilling your hands, excessive and precious, relinquished
\nlike a beggar\u2019s last gold coin\u2014<\/p>\n

I stepped into the scalding stream of water in the shower
\nand emerged after an hour, no longer sobbing, no longer
\nraising my hands in supplication.<\/p>\n

I began to eat again: pomegranate seeds
\none at a time, two almonds, one grape tomato.<\/p>\n

I took one step forward and paused\u2014
\npressing my forehead against the window, exhausted\u2014
\nthen another. Secretly, turning my face away<\/p>\n

in shame, I sank into the far corner of the room.
\nTouching for the first time the silk folds
\nof the curtain, the white petals of flowers in a vase,<\/p>\n

I practiced being born again into the world,
\nthis time without you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"OHareMerit O’Hare’s work has appeared in The Portland Review, The Potomac Review and Mad Poets Review, as well as on Sirius Radio and at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City in a reading that featured poets such as Mark Strand and Edward Hirsch. \u00a0A recent graduate, she was the recipient of Dickinson College’s Academy of American Poets Prize in 2009, 2010 and 2011, and has twice been invited to read at an international poetry festival at the college featuring poets from Italy, Germany, Israel, Russia, and Spain.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The fledglings, how do they do it? And the new-furred rabbits, emerging from the nest? Something amiss is what the air, electric, must warn the starlings; the rabbits, they leave at twilight and live, at first, among the foxgloves, seeking surrogates in the cold white blossoms, becoming accustomed that way to solitude. A week after [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[97,95],"class_list":["post-2154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-egon-schiele","tag-mother-2-children"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2154"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2412,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2154\/revisions\/2412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}