"Sunday Chores with Mom" Poem

an ode to my mother and other mothers that hide their pain in manual labor

Before I get into the poem, I want to discuss the inspiration behind it. When I was younger I had chores and Sundays was when you did chores… it was like the 9-5 …. depending on the point in my life it was church then chores or just chores but the consistent thing was CHORES. I disliked them heavy, wanting to go outside and play versus be in the constant presence of pine sol and scrub brushes. In hindsight it seemed selfish but my mother is deceased and its like there are different memories that enter my mind and I keep her spirit alive in my poetry. It made me think of how it was more of a release for her doing the chores vs it being painful for me. A single mother, 3 children, she had a mental condition, a registered nurse, divorced etc… how could life be any more complicated than it was back in the 80s and 90s… part of me wishes me and my mother had a stable enough relationship for me to ask her how she survived, the WHYs , the Hows… maybe it wasnt meant for me to understand till later on at the age of 39… anyway, here is the poem Sunday Chores with Mom:

There was church and then there was Sunday Chores with Mom

Deeply rooted than religion

Infused with the sounds of Al Green, Jody Whatley, Anita Baker with adlibs of Patti Labelle in the wrong keys but a key

Partnered with the scents of comet, bathroom cleaner, green sos pads that needed the ELBOW in elbow grease for the grime 

I wondered if she was exuding her pain into the tile grout

Or the kitchen stove hold residual of tears of single motherhood..

Wishing i knew what kept her doing chores every SUnday aside from the cleanliness of the house 

How minutes turned into hours while the 6 disc CD changer kept the janitorial soundtrack in heavy roation

The silent lesson I was taught on Sundays… eye burning chemicals that tears cleansed wondering if it was a way to hide her anxiety around pay days with a counter piled with pills.. Aching knees from praying to the porcelain for a better situation .. 

Heavy exhausted breaths of intensed labor with minimum wage exhalations and hoping for better days inhalations

I never understood till i became older what those days were… what those hours meant when you didnt have to think and just do to keep the mind occupied… what mindfulness is considered now when it was just making the place presentable for company that we didnt see.. Even in times of darkness no electricity ….. 

Sunday Chores was the luxury, the variety for the week… 6 disc changer rarely had different music but it sounded different every week. 

Al Green became extra tired of being alone and Patti Labelle wondered did we really KNOW… or if we KNEW how much she loved us … 

Echoes of melanated pain to match our melanated energies, the soundtrack to the struggle in constant rotation. Lessons that went on spoken only through repetition of a clean kitchen, freshly washed laundry , disinfected bathroom tiles and polished living room furnitures

I learned and I know now…