Like a Handful of Pebbles
by Luther Hughes
Watching geese skim the river鈥檚 cheek,
I realize I never asked about her life before my birth.
I remember the vulgar green grass we slept on
in the park off 4th downtown, homeless, wish sandwiches
and Capri-Suns lazy between us. I remember the night
she flung glass mugs at my father as he ducked
into my godmother鈥檚 apartment. I remember throwing
a tantrum at Woodland Park Zoo. As a child, I鈥檓 told,
she ran to her grandmother鈥檚 house to get ahead
of the story after breaking my uncle鈥檚 nose.
They say, at 18, she told my visiting cousin
to be a lady or to go back home. I used to write,
she had told me, as I do now for you, who,
I鈥檓 sure, have your own history of remorse
and forgotten tales left in the backyard.
Listening to geese simp for bread, a mother
tells her son to hurry up or get left. On the other side,
another is told to pose. I鈥檓 redirecting, I know,
how grief pours into the mind like a handful of pebbles
into a river. I know I can鈥檛 sit all afternoon watching
the day detangle, the buttons of people sitting, standing,
drinking their matcha lattes, savoring the Spokane sun.
Everyone regrets something. A missed call. Too many shots
of Henny. An overpriced blouse sharpening its teeth
against your shoulders. A harmony you can鈥檛,
for the blood of you, shake silent. There鈥檚 a song
she exhausted every morning that is now flexing
its muscle against the back of my mind. Any other time,
I鈥檇 sing it for you, gift the day my weeping,
but for now, the river inhales. The geese dip their beaks.
鈥淟ike a Handful of Pebbles鈥� was written out of guilt. I was in Spokane for Get Lit! Festival, a literary festival in Spokane, WA. Over those four days, I was reading a lot of poems about lineage, parenthood/grandparenthood, childhood, and the overall connections we have with people. Several poems talked about the history of their parents and grandparents by way of conversation. I had realized, as the poem states, I鈥檝e never even considered what my mom鈥檚 life was like before me. I knew some things pertaining to my dad, but nothing before they met.
The poem starts this way. With shame birthed a desperation to call important memories from my childhood that one could call 鈥渃ore memories.鈥� And then, it moves beyond that to pull memories I heard my aunts and uncles talk about during her funeral鈥攁 fact I left out of the poem purposefully but speaks to this lack of interest and overwhelming shame.
It enacts the loneliness of my time in Spokane in this regard; mothers and their children all around me, people moving through the world without even knowing my mom was dead. I was moved to remove myself from this as evident in the poem: 鈥淚鈥檓 redirecting, I know, / how grief pours into the mind like a handful of pebbles / into a river.鈥�
The final emotion I found myself harboring was regret. The relationship between regret, grief, and shame culminates in my mom鈥檚 favorite song, which I refuse to share with the reader; I wanted something that was mine, something that only I would know.
And then time moves on.
is the author of A Shiver in the Leaves and the chapbook Touched. They are the founder of Shade Literary Arts, an online platform for queer writers of color, and co-host of The Poet Salon podcast with Gabrielle Bates and Dujie Tahat. Honors include the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Rosenberg Fellowship, 92Y Discovery Poetry Prize, and Cascade PBS鈥檚 Black Arts Legacies. Their writing has been published in The Paris Review, Orion, and The American Poetry Review. Hughes lives in Seattle.