Trying to Write a Music Poem

Abstract

Trying to Write a Music Poem Diamond Forde (bio) Mom sings in the kitchen:phonic value of a few notesbeaten out in egg wash. I try to describe the sound:the solemn sighing of a small dogsinking to sleep. I’m afraid to write my motherwith the pots and spitting pans.The world has written her domestic already, turned her clattering handhard against the bowl to motherlyyoke. I am so tired of looking all day at the lyricsof these lines, at my mothertwisting her wrist to whisk the egg foam. My mother foldingdough, weaving Toni Braxtonsolos through the buttery seams. There was a time without mom’smusic. When the MS took her deadand weighty legs, the numbness constant, she welcomed needlesof occasional pain. Describe the soundas a woman hollowed and filled [End Page 736] with unsound nerves. Describethe silence as a woman who lostleg rhythm. This is the way of writing music. Searching stanzasfor symphonies, missing my mother.Forgetting I missed my mother. Present her anyway I can:her feet learning to tap in staccato.The gentle give of her working hands. [End Page 737] Diamond Forde diamond forde is a third-year MFA candidate at the University of Alabama. She is a Callaloo and Tin House fellow with work appearing in Black Warrior Review, Fire Tetrahedron and Birmingham Poetry Review. Copyright © 2016 The Massachusetts Review, Inc.