Analysis of Slim Picking
Slim Picking
For Mama
(May 11, 1920 - August 14, 2012)
I cannot watch your frail frame shrink
in your housedress. Sunny lifts you
effortlessly, you are lighter than a proverb.
Yet I'm glad when his ministrations
are over for that is my cue to get
your bag of bones next to my flesh.
Usually adroit, I am in a panic
when I cut deeper than your cuticle
and your blood spurts before your "Ouch!"
I almost forget the mysteries as, past
the band-aid on your toe, our roles
reverse when I lead and you follow.
Your hospital-scented skull assumes
a pieta-like tableau only peculiarly
for I cradle your idiom feather.
Then I regret that I cannot summon
the stories that I saved before coming
to beg your gossip of old instead
which I used to detest. You smirk,
like you knew I knew, that your few
friends hardly visit to underscore my rare
presence. My heartstrings tug at the guilt
but you are a picture of mischief like
I could not believe. I want to stay
longer than my alibi allowed but insist
my reason was not just distance
and you are irrepressibly perceptive.
I wonder where your wrinkles hide
the tenacity that used to stalk
my whereabouts when you were hale.
Under his breath, Sunny mumbles
you, and a meager dinner, and a morsel
catches your throat, and he cannot watch.
Scheme | AXX XBXX XXXC XXXX XXXX AXXB XXXX XXXX XXXC X |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110 110 110 11011111 0111011 100011101010 11111010 1101111111 11111111 100001110010 1111011100 01110111 1101010011 011111101 011110110 11010101 01101100100 1110110010 1101111010 0101110110 111101101 11110111 11111111 1101010111 10111101 1110101101 111011111 10111001101 11011110 0111010 11011101 001001111 1101101 10111010 10010100010 101101101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,249 |
Words | 235 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 1 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 102 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 23 |
About this poem
A memorial for my mother
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Written on August 14, 2012
Submitted by ham8113 on September 06, 2021
Modified on March 10, 2023
- 1:10 min read
- 2 Views
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