T. J. Penman

i was raised in the house that neither of my parents built
although my mother was the one that raised me
she took a home not built yet and filled it with daughters
and when her husband left
he took his paintings of french women
garbed in robes with eyes grinning into the sun
admired by little girls with hearts that wanted to be filled with the same laughing sunshine

a woman laughing, “monsieur!” to fill the cup
had been replaced
the paintings became flowers
soft shapes, lines, birds from relatives, corn from the sixties

and soon little girls became young women
with clothes scattering the bedroom floor
people to chase after, cars to drive
so grown-up and yet so different from the women they stared at in their pink school dresses
women with wild eyes, plump lips, and filled bosoms, all in a black frame

walking past medical dictionaries, old office
abandoned
carcasses of ladybugs, barbies, triple-A batteries
a slow, silent, amicable death
years in the making

sometimes the little girl resents her mother
for choosing to make an incomplete family
even though it wasn’t really a choice but a gradual transition

however she doesn’t realize it was

her mother who replaced the paintings with signs bearing:
“i love you more”
and kept lights on
and windows open
even during dark hours
she grew hearts and gave them to her daughters

even when they didn’t know the sacrifices
or why the paintings that they had memorized
changed shape and location

they may have not been the same wild-eyed french girls
holding “du soleil dans un verre”
but she dressed her house for her daughters, her own sunshine girls.