THE END OF A MARRIAGE
At the end, when his sugary, honey covered lies began to stick to me,
weigh me down and before I am taken away in a coffin. I left.
Made the sign of the cross went to see a therapist.
In the therapist’s office, the statue of the Buddha waits patiently on a shelf behind her desk
as I begin to plow my way into enlightenment.
It is difficult to speak the unspeakable, to hide the sorrow behind my smile.
My therapist says, Luisa, you must take care of yourself.
I say, I didn’t know I had a self.
I let her know that in high school, no one took the time to ask the girls,
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
They asked, “How many kids do you want to have.?”
I always answered, “Seven, just like my mother.”
Dressed in our pretty crinolines, my friend Margie and I
would sit on my front stoop and dream our married lives.
where we lived in pink cottages surrounded by white picket fences.
Like a Hallmark Card.
Our kids would play hide and seek, while we played canasta,
drank coffee, smoked cigarettes. There were no husbands in our dreams.
At nineteen fluffed up in a veil of innocence, I married.
The marriage fell apart on my honeymoon, where I was stripped
of my innocence. I doggy paddled through life without a
life jacket for fifty-seven years.
until at the age of seventy-five, I left.
Now, as I sit in my therapist’s office, I tell her about the recurring dream
I had during my married life of the baby with no arms and legs.
Just a trunk. This truncated baby
cannot speak, cannot walk, cannot hug.
As I continue with my therapy, the dream baby begins to grow arms and legs.
I tell the baby to come live with me.
We sit together on my couch.
The dream baby begins to grow arms and legs.
Her cheeks are fat and rosy.
Her plump baby toes and creases in her thighs
Delight me.
She purses her lips. I encourage her to speak.
She utters a sound, a blip of a word.
When she slips off the couch,
I pick up. Hold her in my arms.
Close to my Heart.
Bio:
Luisa LoCascio Matarazzo was born in Montclair, New Jersey to a Sicilian mother and father who came to the States in 1913.Luisa has taken the stories her father told her about Sicily to write a memoir: Between Two Worlds: Sicily and America: a Journey Through Myth and Reality. When she is not writing, Luisa takes brush to canvas and paints landscape and florals, winning many prizes. She is working on a second book that will include essays from her many trips to Italy, Sicily and France
OVUNQUE SIAMO 