Titanium
Tuesday, June 9, 2021
I read an article on Medium that mentioned a poetry competition for Pride month. I sent it on to Samantha, my daughter, as she writes mind-blowing poems and encouraged her to enter. Unfortunately, the challenge is past due which I should have realized but didn’t. So, I decided to try my hand at it as the topic intrigued me. I am not a poet. I am a straight, middle-aged white lady as boring as they come, but I like a challenge and thought “what the heck.” Samantha is a fascinating creature with an incredible brain. She is in a long-term relationship with a man but is on a spectrum of sexuality. I’d say she does not claim anything. She’s just her, but I’d check with her as I may be wrong (as mothers sometimes are). The competition by Vocal was to write a poem about something that makes you unique, inspired by the idea of color. Grey is the color for brain cancer and is also a literary symbol for sadness. My childhood was mostly gray. My adult life has been much more colorful, but the gray still hovers due to my cancer and other life losses. I hope you enjoy my gray poem.
Titanium
Gray is my color (grey)
Gray for my first kitten who was tragically killed by a grey stone
flung by a passing mower
Gray for endless winters cold and grey
alone and lonely longing for summer
Gray for my childhood in all its grey confusion
my youthful winsome mom doing her best
Gray for the 3 grey hairs on Grandpa Ernie’s head
his mind and heart I so deeply loved
Gray for the grey tipped pencils
required at the ubiquitous schools I did attend
Gray for the old grey-haired Serbian man
I married too soon
Gray for the grey Oldsmobile driving fast, icy curvy roads
above Superior, not caring if I lived, taking my hands off the wheel
Gray for the frigid grey ocean waves
beckoning me achingly to join the darkness
Gray for the backyard grey fire-pit smoke
I relished with my true partner
Gray for the grey lost years
of mourning my living mother
Gray for the grade II grey brain tumor
that haunted my thirties
Gray for the grey titanium plates
that clamp my still sore skull together
Gray for the grey gadolinium
that quarterly pulses through my veins
Gray for my grey-silver flute
the craniotomy did take
Gray for the grey headstone of my mother-in-law
who should still be standing in her beloved kitchen
Gray for my mother’s long, shiny grey hair
that I now see with loving frequency
Gray for my brain that became a blank slate akin to grey slate
as I lay not knowing I was passing quickly
Gray for the gross grey-matter
that was skillfully removed last summer
Gray for the stage IV grey brain tumor
that consumes my every waking move
Gray for the cold grey concrete floor
my seized body woke to
Gray for the grey dust
that I feel I must constantly remove
Gray for the growing grey flecks
in both of our hairs
Gray for cremation, but.
Not. Yet.
grey cashmere I wrap myself in
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