Deirdre Neilen, PhD: Anne Bucey lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Her poem "Before the Diagnosis" reflects a mother's wish to change some parts of the past, to focus on the singular gift of a family's love.
"Before the Diagnosis"
I walk all the way back to where it was just
depression, then back before that to where it was willfulness
or the question of who was in charge, to the rose room,
the candle in the basement, to the truth told slant on brick walls,
to the girls she knew, who once were her friends, to the photos
I still have of them. And I say: Let me be mother again,
do things differently, take back what I said about the other
friend, wars fought over unwashed pans, things said to her father and to myself,
less loved, it seems, than now. Which is what I really want to bring
to the old living room: a heart, not needing it to be better than what it was,
with its clutter and banter and serial drama -- me and the kind mother
of myself, taking all of the fever into one round hug, slaking its thirst
for no resolution -- the pain, just as it was.
A face in the mirror of love.
