You Should Look For Her
The Girls Who Went Away, 1
My first three birthdays, flickering on my cake An extra candle gamely joined the group. My mother placed it there and lit it for The woman who had given birth to me. I do not remember this, of course. I do remember she would look at me And I would know: her thoughts were on my mother. About my parents, my parents knew but little. She was nineteen, her family ran a farm; He came from money and played college ball. Everyone told them it would never work. My mother knew it couldn’t be so simple. She would tell me their story, and she’d cry. To me, it sounded like a movie plot: I liked it—soulful, with ill-fated love. I was mysterious; my self was mine to make. Years later a strange woman crossed a room And said to me with frantic urgency You could be my long-lost daughter. I stared at her as if into a mirror, Then calculated birthdates, and shook my head no. She touched my shoulder: you should look for her. She probably worries every single day. She probably worries every single day— In over forty years, I’d never had that thought. My search was easier than that of most. I cautiously unsealed the envelope, I learned my mother’s name, I learned her place Of residence the day that I was born. Months later, traveling for work, an impulse Steered me down the highway to her hometown. Her brother lived there still, and all the stories He could tell were not enough. Yet when He asked, I did not tell him who I was. I wrote down her address, but it would be Another fourteen years before I went to her. Like all those mothers, she had been assured That afterward, she’d move on and forget. I believe my mother knew this was a lie. The cake that lit the room when I turned four Had just four candles cozy in a line. Three years of sharing me was all that she could bear.
After “My Own Story as an Adoptee,” in The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fessler.
Part of: The Girls Who Went Away: Poems.