A Poem about Parents

Thank God and Amma I am secure in the knowledge that my daughters will never write this about me:

[In honor of the 2020 Nobel Prize winner of Literature]

As I saw it,
all my mother's life, my father
held her down, like
lead strapped to her ankles.

She was
buoyant by nature;
she wanted to travel,
go to the theater, go to museums.

What he wanted
was to lie on the couch
with the Times
over his face,
so that death, when it came,
wouldn't seem a significant change.”
― Louise Glück, Ararat

She also wrote, accurately (up to a point):
“Intense love always leads to mourning.”
― Louise Gluck, Triumph of Achilles