Mom always writes in uppercase

I watch her in repose,

The phone in the nape of her neck still sighing

Like a helpless long-necked rose.

She puts it down through October eyes

And makes her pages take the words

Like tiny kicks in the teeth I watch

Her pen is a provocative sword.

On a dirty kitchen counter one day

Her words watch me with hardened I’s

Sorry for unfinished stories they sigh

Each letter bleeds smooth, not clean but dry.

Why does it feel like a stifled scream hangs

Unannounced above her notes?

She clutched a pen so tight as a girl

Away from the hall and her mother's room

The ringing of a cheek still pinned to the wall

You can still hear it if she closes her eyes

So she writes in all caps

Her final defense

A blue blackened eye dipped in blue black ink

I can feel the marks she’s made.