Poetry by Steve Cushman

Enough

Has been written about Spanish Moss
on Florida’s Oak Trees and for good reason.
There’s something about the way it hangs
beautiful and messy, despite the wind
and rain and hurricanes that rip roofs
off houses, crumble mobile homes, 
while the moss survives, and even seems
to thrive.  While I could attempt to write 
something new about Moss, I’m more 
interested in this photo of my twenty-five-year-old
mother standing beneath a camphor tree, 
her hands on her hips, too-short cut-offs, 
and red bikini top, our first Florida home behind her.
I was four, Kim six, and Mom and Dad
had fled the cold of Massachusetts
that February.  She looks so confident,
strong and beautiful in this photo,
though she appears to be squinting from the sun.

I wonder what my mother wanted most,
a simple life?  Glamour?  Romance?
Or maybe just an escape from that 
Northeastern cold.  There’s something
in her squint that I want to understand.
I don’t remember her as this confident, 
sexy woman. The only thing I’m sure of 
in this picture is over her right shoulder, 
hanging off the tree is a chunk of Spanish 
Moss, like a tiara or Hawaiian Lei, 
something she could wrap herself in.  

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Steve Cushman has published three novels, including Portisville, winner of the 2004 Novello Literary Award. His first full-length collection, How Birds Fly, won the 2018 Lena Shull Book award.  A new collection, The Last Time, is due out in 2023.