Helping My Daughter Move into Her First Apartment

By Sue Ellen Thompson Sue Ellen Thompson

This is all I am to her now:

a pair of legs in running shoes,

two arms strung with braided wire.

She heaves a carton sagging with CDs

at me and I accept it gladly, lifting

with my legs, not bending over,

raising each foot high enough

to clear the step. Fortunate to be

of any use to her at all,

I wrestle, stooped and single-handed,

with her mattress in the stairwell,

saying nothing as it pins me,

sweating, to the wall. Vacuum cleaner,

spiny cactus, five-pound sacks

of rice and lentils slumped

against my heart: up one flight

of stairs and then another,

down again with nothing in my arms.

Poem copyright ©2006 by Sue Ellen Thompson, and reprinted from When She Named Fire, ed., Andrea Hollander Budy, Autumn House Press, 2009, and reprinted by permission of the poet and publisher. First printed in The Golden Hour, Sue Ellen Thompson, Autumn House Press, 2006.

Biography

Sue Ellen Thompson is the author of four books of poetry, including The Wedding Boat (1995) and This Body of Silk (1986). Her two most recent books, The Leaving: New & Selected Poems (2001) and The Golden Hour (2005), were both nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Known for her elegant control of form, Thompson’s poetry has been praised for its metaphorical heft and sinuous syntax. Poet B.H. Fairchild praised The Golden Hour for . . .

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