Beate Sigriddaughter,
www.sigriddaughter.net, is poet laureate of Silver City, New Mexico (Land of Enchantment). Her work has received several Pushcart Prize nominations and poetry awards. New books out in 2018 were Xanthippe and Her Friends (FutureCycle Press) and Postcards to a Young Unicorn (Salador Press).
DEFACED
Mom might die any day, that’s why I can’t say anything. She
has been dying for years. So when she painted a picture of me in
which I looked fat, gross and stupid, all the while raving about
how beautiful and spiritual I looked in the portrait, the best I
could do was dump the thing, together with her hatred for me, and
when asked, I tell her, of course I still have it.
I mean what do you do when someone tells you how beautiful
you are and shows you that they think it is a lie?
Grandma has Alzheimer’s, so she more or less gets away with
things. Mom did a portrait of her, too, a watercolor. One day
Grandma dumped her spaghetti plate, with sauce, on the portrait,
which couldn’t be restored to its original official beauty
afterwards.
So of course Mom holds a grudge, though no one can
tell exactly where and when it started.