Poet's Corner: Cord not severed
October 05, 2009
Commentary by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06

An "aubade" is a poem about separation at dawn, but as you'll see, this one by Dore Kiesselbach, who lives in Minnesota, is about the complex relationship between a son and his mother.

Aubade

"Take me with you"
my mother says
standing in her nightgown
as, home from college,
I prepare to leave
before dawn.
The desolation
she must face
was once my concern
but like a bobber
pulled beneath
the surface
by an inedible fish
she vanished
into the life
he offered her.
It stopped occurring
to me she might return.
"I'll be back" I say
and then I go.

"American Life in Poetry" is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright 2008 by Dore Kiesselbach. Poem reprinted from Field, No. 79, Fall 2008, by permission of Dore Kiesselbach and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

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