Mother

By Alicia Ostriker

although I have put an ocean between us
still do you know how I lie awake at night
the eye in my right palm pictures you
sitting amid your litter, feel buried
by accumulated jars of buttons,
glass lose beneath a decade of bank statements
and funny poems,
hands folding under your chin, staring
at nothing, preparing to be blind
and helpless, for fifty years
it has tortured me that I cannot save you from
      madness
and that I do not love you enough

what is enough
nothing is enough