4.
What is it we turn from, what is it we fear?
Did I truly think you could put me back inside?
Did I think I would fall into you as into a molten
furnace and be recast, that I would become you?
What did you fear in me, the child who wore
your hair, the woman who let that black hair
grow long as a banner of darkness, when you
a proper flapper wore yours cropped?
You pushed and you pulled on my rubbery
flesh, you kneaded me like a ball of dough.
Rise, rise, and then you pounded me flat.
Secretly the bones formed in the bread.
I became willful, private as a cat.
You never knew what alleys I had wandered.
You called me bad and I posed like a gutter
queen in a dress sewn of knives.
All I feared was being stuck in a box
with a lid. A good woman appeared to me
indistinguishable from a dead one
except that she worked all the time.
Your payday never came. Your dreams ran
with bright colors like Mexican cottons
that bled onto the drab sheets of the day
and would not bleach with scrubbing.
My dear, what you said was one thing
but what you sang was another, sweetly
subversive and dark as blackberries
and I became the daughter of your dream.
This body is your body, ashes now
and roses, but alive in my eyes, my breasts,
my throat, my thighs. You run in me
a tang of salt in the creek waters of my blood,
you sing in my mind like wine. What you
did not dare in your life you dare in mine.
Analysis
There are 4 parts to this poem, but I chose this one to analyze. This poem is the last part of 'My Mother's Body', which is about how her and her mother had grown to have a deminished relationship. "Did I truely think you could put me back inside?" writes Marge Piercy. This line is the hurt she feels from her mother's mistreatment. She wonders if she would ever really "fall into [her] as into molten", like a mold of her mother.
Clearly, she is very different from her mother. She has long flowing hair, which indicates that she was rather care-free, whereas her mother has "a propper flapper...cropped" haircut, indicating that her mother is a harsh person who demands neatness and conformity.
Her mother has seemingly "kneaded [her] like a ball of dough" to try to make her into the perfect woman. Marge would "rise, rise, and then [be] pounded...flat" by her mother. This is an act of suppression on women, of which her mother helped.
Eventually, Marge writes that she "became willful, private as a cat", due to her mother's mistreatment. She "feared...being stuck in a box with a lid", nowhere to go and nothing to do. She wanted a life more than just boring and what was set out for her/demanded by her mom.
She also writes that her mother worked a lot, but her "payday never came", which means that a reward for her hardwork never really came. Her mom once had "dreams...with bright colors like Mexican cottons...[that] woul dnot bleach with scrubbing". Clearly, her mother was not the type of women she made herself out to be like. Her and her mother had the potential to get along and be very close, as they once were, but suppression got the best of the older woman.
She writes, "my body is your body...you run in me a tang of salt in the creek waters of my blood". She emphasizes the idea that she and her mother are very similar people. The last line, "what you did not dare in your life you dare in mine" is my favorite part of this poem because Marge is saying that her and her mom are truely inseperable and similar people. But the mom clearly couldn't do what she wanted with her life, for the oppurtunity was never given to her. Marge would be the woman that her mother could never be.
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