my mother sits on an airport bench in Reykjavik
soft waves of hair the graceful drift of her scarf
pearls across the vee of her throat
she is the first lady of her sprawling family
ahead lies a year in the dim light of Copenhagen:
beds cots and crib to sleep nine in a vine-
covered third-floor apartment with attic
French windows opening onto a balcony deep
as a pair of feet but too weak to bear her weight
mornings are a sock-of-a-coffee-filter round the rim of red
enamelware at the red-checkered kitchen table
clang of half-dozen brown milk bottles at the landing
breakfast of cornflakes and real butter tooth-thick on dark rye
she drinks dark beer eats freshly fried pork rinds
fermented fish the smell stronger than Limburger cheese
fells the youngins upwind as the adults dine below
her husband bathes the children in a plastic tub on Saturdays
long neck of a shower wand above the sink
an enchantment for the kids the swans at Frederiksberg Park
like the zoo like the lights of the Tivoli Gardens
she sends her brood to school in the rain
a badelynge of ducks in a parade of blue ponchos
as they cross cobblestones climb into trolleys
she fades a little in the dark and damp
four-year-old at her hip she is never alone
her thyroid slows she gives over to ulcers
the future holds her convalescence
on a beach south of Barcelona
long legs warmed in the hot sand
enough sunlight to re-ignite her dreams
“Peggy Shumaker’s piece about her mother reminded me of one I had written about my own, both women ‘staying the course’ through marriage and multiple pregnancies. We mustn’t forget the cost.”
“So this is a Sabbatical” was first published in Barton’s chapbook, Out of the Woods, 2017.