(With a cackle and a leer and a wicked-witch voice)
I am a stepmother
An evil wicked vain stepmother
So the Disney-witches leer from the pages I read to my son:
Hansel & Gretel banished to the forest!
Snow White mistreated and poisoned!
And poor Cinderella on her ash heap
ALL MY DOING!
What are these books doing in our house?
I am a stepmother A step by step--mother
No poisoned apples or magic mirrors here
Only another pair of loving eyes to rest on this boy.
I will carry this child only in this heart
and in these arms --
never in this belly.
I am a stepmother, so when people ask,
"Is this your son?"
I say, "Yes, not really" and feel like a liar either way.
What I want to say is:
"I love this boy terrifying fierce
and worry about him - needlessly
and wash his socks
and tell him the best stories I can think of."
I want to tell them he is family to me.
I am a stepmother--a step right up mother.
Before I knew it, we were making a mother of me, he and I.
He climbs under my big shirt
Comes out squalling: "mama, mama, goo goo."
I name him and pet him
and he generously shows me some of what I missed
in those years when he was a son
and I was not yet a mother.
© 1991 Barbara McAfee
Please contact Barbara for permission to use poem -
(612) 840-9255
