Darla Mottram- Two Poems

Mother 

Mother died alone

in her low-income apartment

facedown on the floor.

Meth muddled her

brain, along with a

burst blood vessel.

She watches from

the Pacific, where

they flung her ashes.

I hear her wailing

warnings to the wind,

so I cover my ears.

Mother died alone.

Sometimes I think she wants

me to do the same.

Snow Dogs

We traverse the paved path

as if it is the tundra, heads bent

against wind, eyes half shut,

aching for an absent sun.

We veer off the path

into frosted grass, feeling a little

freer, a little less restrained.

The wind hurries us along,

flapping my jacket,

flurrying his tail.

He is a husky, a snow dog:

he belongs to the wind–blown wilderness

of the frozen northlands.

That is a long way from home

for both of us.

We are domestics.

We have soft feet

and softer wills.

His instincts usurp his upbringing.

He dashes from one smell to the next,

tail waving like a banner in the wind.

If not for the leash in my hand,

he would revert to his better nature--

he would run as one whose days

are numbered not by calendars

but by breaths.

In the falling darkness,

in the swirling dust of snowflakes

fluttering dove-like to the ground;

I can almost believe

that if I begin to run with him,

if I let go of the length of leash tying us

together, if I close my eyes and open

them again,

I too will be a snow dog,

and this stretch of dead grass

will transform into tundra

and all I’ve ever known

will be only a dream I once had

which I can no longer recall.

Darla Mottram is a full-time student at Marylhurst University in Lake Oswego. She plans to graduate with a degree in creative writing and promptly begin her life as that person who spends Saturday nights doing tarot readings for her cat.