Inkotica

My mother was proud of her whites. I was too.
You could see the glint in her eye when friends of mine
would comment on how brilliantly white my socks were.

Their socks always looked a greyish off-white colour.
You could tell they thought that my socks were
a sign of a good caring mother, as though they’d been cheated
’cause their mothers couldn’t give them white socks.

My mother didn’t have an easy life.
Her childhood was hard, far harder than mine.
Her mother was poor, alone and worked two jobs
while taking care of four kids and a cranky mother.

My grandfather preferred drinking to taking care of the kids.
Even tried to drown one of them once
while in a drunken stupor.

My aunt used to say that the only things she remembered
about my grandfather were hate and alcohol.
Yet despite all this and more besides, they survived.
They had spirit (in the non alcoholic sense).

My mother was unlucky in love too.
Two marriages and neither one really appreciated her,
despite the whiteness of her whites.

They failed to see the one thing that mattered you see.
They didn’t look beyond the whiteness of our socks,
or the glow of the crisp white cotton sheets
hanging on the washing line on Sundays.

They didn’t see the whiteness of her soul.
That is what truly mattered.