Class as a More Tangible Thing

My mother grew up well
Her father had no small success
in Real Estate Development
They had a maid growing up
Her mother was home to cook dinner
every night
& yet, she hated it.

I think she harbored the hope
that common families
with their duel incomes,
softball games,
PTA,
& summer roadtrip vacations,
despite the hardships
we’re still somehow happier.

She, like me, pursued poverty
at first chance of legal liberty
worked civil service jobs
a Cop until they forced her out
for having us kids
then a Nurse.

I have a picture of her in her Whites
Nurse’s cap perched atop
her perfectly permed head
just smiling wide-eyed
like the picture of Nursedom
in the 1940s.

I was raised among solid wood furniture
mostly wedding presents
pictures of hens
cross-stitch
good china unused.

My mother always worked
after my Father left
which was as long as I’d been around
My brother & I we’re latchkey kids
my bike was a hand-me-down
of my brothers
cleaned up real nice
we had traditions around the TV

My mother was a working class hero
local news coverage
of a struggling family
doing what they can
for themselves & their communities
She met a man
a fellow volunteer from Ohio
& they married.

My mother couldn’t have been further
from her upbringing
She’s lived that way her whole life
& now her aching heart
keeps looking for love
in the lower middle class
& I can’t convince her
that she’s lived her whole life
split up
with her head in the clouds
& her heart on the ground
& neither place
holds any guarantee of love.