Light Bulb Glow | Teen Ink

Light Bulb Glow MAG

April 29, 2015
By Anonymous

Aunt Heather’s getting married again
and she’s sitting cross-legged
on my mother’s bed in two robes
and a sweater because
her heart condition leaves her
chilly.
Light bulb glow creeps
across gold wallpaper,
catches on the curling iron
my sister’s using,
gently sliding it down
inky hair,
rolling a perm into soft curls.
My mother smiles wide
with bobby pins between her teeth.
I’m in a college sweatshirt and
jeans sifting through
operas, playing them
to this intimate audience,
giggles and a
you-could-walk-down-the-
aisle-to-that-one-in-Philadelphia
four women
in a bedroom sitting yellow
against the blue night.
My lips spread into a slow smile
because her first husband
scared me, his thick arms
rippling under shirts.
Mike won’t abandon my aunt in
the intensive care unit
or use a belt to bruise and burn
my cousins’ starry skin.



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This article has 3 comments.


on May. 5 2015 at 7:01 pm
theblondechick GOLD, Kingsport, Tennessee
14 articles 0 photos 104 comments

Favorite Quote:
I want to live and feel all the shades, tones, and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life.
And I am horribly limited.
-Sylvia Path

@poppyqueen You're very welcome. I even talked about this poem with my mother and sister after dinner. We we're outside, and I told my mother that I wanted to remember the way the sunlight hit her hair in THIS moment. How sometimes their are moments in life that we all desperately want to remember, but even in that moment, we are aware that we won't remember it exactly how it happened. (I probably won't remember the way the light hit her hair.) Anyway, I really like your poem!

on May. 5 2015 at 10:18 am
poppyqueen SILVER, Mount Prospect, Illinois
9 articles 0 photos 2 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Maybe that's what life is...a wink of the eye and winking stars."

- Jack Kerouac

@theblondechick Thank you so much! I'm really glad you enjoyed the poem and your comment means so much! :)

on May. 5 2015 at 8:20 am
theblondechick GOLD, Kingsport, Tennessee
14 articles 0 photos 104 comments

Favorite Quote:
I want to live and feel all the shades, tones, and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life.
And I am horribly limited.
-Sylvia Path

Great imagery: "my mother smiles wide with bobby ins between her teeth." You really gave life to your aunt - I feel like I have an idea of who she is - in just a few sentences. It read almost like a story, which is very clever. Great poem. congrats on the Editor's Choice