by Maria Mazziotti Gillan
How many years have I spent
trying to appease the child who still
cowers inside me —that being
who did not know how to find the words to free it
from the prison of her circumstances,
the poverty knotted like a scarf around her throat,
the dreams of another life that seemed beyond reach
for this immigrant child
who did not speak English when she went to school,
that child who found in poetry, a way to articulate
all she longed for,
how to fill in the outline of herself;
she never could’ve explained it out loud to anyone else.
Even today, so many years after those first poems,
my books piled around me,
there are days within the darkest corners of myself,
that child still cries, though she cannot say why
or what she wants,
that high-pitched wail of hunger
whose exact nature she cannot name.
Is that why so many things
I worked so hard to give my children — the private schools,
and slumber parties and summer camps and good clothes
are really for the child
with her hand-me-down clothes and her cotton underpants for Christmas presents,
for all the toys she never got
because she didn’t know how to ask
for what she needed and could not name?
This poem appeared in Ovenbird Poetry Seven
Maria Mazziotti Gillan's most recent books are the poetry and photography collection, Paterson Light and Shadow and the poetry collection, What Blooms in Winter. Her collection of poems paired with some of her paintings is The Girls in the Chartreuse Jackets. Her new artist website is at MariaMazziottiGillan.com. Maria's poetry website is MariaGillan.com.
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