Not the rejected lies of the New York Foundling

home, not the adoptive widow of two names,

one of devious spelling,

not the dog tag pinned to the plaid dress

for the train ride to Missouri, but the surname

work like a shoulder brand

on the skin of the natural mother,

Grandmother Grant. 
When I went in my black robes through the hot

streets of the city, a young nun

pale as the star I followed

led to the desk of a three-faced guardian. One

face called me Sister to my face. One was

motherly, "Oh my dear, I can't risk the wrong

information." One, older than the order, nervous,

bit the sentence off

on a fragment of Irish history. 
I couldn't get past the gate. I recognized

the road I was on

led to heaven or hell. Either was barred,

date too early for the name,

a Closed File. I should tell my mother to come.

Back home in Oregon, sixty-nine, wanting to know,

not wanting to know, she waited.

I crossed the continent angry, three thousand

miles of featureless plain. 
Mother, now that you're gone, I'm the same,

swaddled no more in the habit.

Whatever it is that drives us — bad blood,

the face in the unlighted window,

I'm bound to get it straight. If he knocked her down

in the stinking hold of a ship and raped her,

if she followed him out of the church

into the oldest garden under moonstone limbs

of the sycamore, it's too late

to cover her tracks. 
                                              Whoever she was, whatever ties,
 
here is my claim. I need to come into my own.
From Blue Dusk: New and Collected Poems, 1951-2001, originally published in Imaginary Ancestors, 1991. Reprinted by gracious permission from Copper Canyon Press.

We're publishing poetry from Madeline DeFrees each Tuesday in December, to celebrate her life. Read more about this.
 

Previously: Phobias Incorporated