Claire Matturro
Helping My Mother Bathe
As she steps from the hard porcelain tub,
Mad and wet and gripping my arm tightly,
Her own all bone, tissue, and red veins, with
Her damp hair twisted on top of her head
Like some ancient turban of thin white strings,
Behind her against the moist yellow walls
Soap she flung drips like an angry blue fog
Crawling its way down to some ruthless sea.
With skin like raw nerves, she swallows her moans
As I pat her dry more with a whisper
Of towel against her than a true touch,
Her back to me so she can still pretend
She is tall and strong and filled with grace, and
I am not the one seeing her naked.
Mad and wet and gripping my arm tightly,
Her own all bone, tissue, and red veins, with
Her damp hair twisted on top of her head
Like some ancient turban of thin white strings,
Behind her against the moist yellow walls
Soap she flung drips like an angry blue fog
Crawling its way down to some ruthless sea.
With skin like raw nerves, she swallows her moans
As I pat her dry more with a whisper
Of towel against her than a true touch,
Her back to me so she can still pretend
She is tall and strong and filled with grace, and
I am not the one seeing her naked.
Biography
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Claire Matturro was a lawyer until she moved to the Georgia woods and turned to teaching and writing. An author of eight novels, including four published by HarperCollins, she now lives in Florida. Claire remains active in writer’s and environmental groups and is an associate editor at Southern Literary Review.
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