Necklaces Poem by Rasma Haidri

- for Jason

How does a mother get ready for bed
the night her son hangs himself?
Does she, from habit, circle the downstairs,

check windows and lamps, turn down the thermostat?
Does she kick aside his large unlaced tennis shoes,
open the front door, then pull it shut like a gasp?

When she unclasps her necklace does he whisper
how beautiful the gold roped chain looked
on her neck that night when he was seven

and watched her dress to go on a family visit?
What made him lie to his first-grade teacher
that his mother drank and smoked and had to be sent away?

Does she remember how he lay, wide-eyed,
curled like a puppy on her bedspread,
watching the only woman he would ever love

pull the necklace long between two fingers,
place it evenly over her throat, reach back
and effortlessly join the two ends.


(first published in Steam Ticket, University of Wisconsin LaCrosse,1996)