Mother Bird

Mother
When she was younger: tall, long ,blonde hair big green eyes, fine cheekbones,highset. You see the pictures and she's hot. She was graceful. A drug-addicted ballerina offstage. Large pupils or needle point pupils she was the embodiment of grace, elan, finesse.Even 10 years ago she still jogged, she exercised. She had a vitality that was missing in her younger years. Jump forward to now: The first thin you notice is the pallor, the sunken cheeks, the circles. Next, you notice anger, it soaks her every word. Her gesticulations remind you of a crane---an agitated crane, a cartoon bird. She sprinkles her phrases with "fuck". If her monologue were food, it would be very spicy. She tells us she is on a cereal diet; yet, included in her bizarre foodchoice, are various pills:percocet,valium,soma,codeine,oxycontin,flexeril.As she talks I'm reminded of Mutual of Omahas "Wild Kingdom", my mother is a crane,some wierd were-bird. Her taxonomic classification is blank. We stare at her for hours as she speaks in a clipped, ornithological manner. In squaks, in chirps. This isn't right.My mother has turned into a heron.An egret.A tall bird.So, I ask, this is what a steady diet of Wheaties and opiates will do to a person?She answers in a flurry of epithets.This should be sad, but she has her hair pulled way out, her nose is a beak, she looks tropical now.As she curses her head moves as if shes pecking at the air. As she gets up, feathers fall,slowly,in suspended animation, to the hot,California earth.What the fricken' fuck? "Mom, you're losin' your feathers."