i like this

this is very nice.  i can so relate.  i don't like this person when she pushes her way into my being, but i do realize i cannot guilt myself too terribly...impatience is natural, right?  i am so surprised my boy does not react to this side of me in any other way than the boy in this poem does...it could be me writing this...

The Impatient Mother

by Ona Gritz

I know it in my teeth when I become her,

the way they tingle, tighten against each other,

and my sudden rod straight spine.

Beside her at the table, my son twists away 

from a sheet of questions on Lincoln.

He scuffs the floor with a squeak of sneakers,

whines, This is hard.  She feels the pitch of his voice

on her scalp and, though I have poured tea,

wrapped her fingers around the heat of the cup,

she will not be calmed.  You're not trying, 

she accuses, barks think!  then marches to the sink

to wash dishes, clattering them onto the rack

to show what accomplishment sounds like.

Behind her she can hear sighs and the tick

of a pencil hitting wood.  Such and actor, she thinks.

But when she turns to him again his shoulders

are shaking, his face wet.  This is what it takes

for her to leave us alone.  I dry my hands,

hold him, rub slow circles on his back.

He is still such a small boy.  Shhh,

I whisper, as if I could erase her work.

You can do this.  You can.