Grendel's Mother
by Ivy Hoffman
1.
He brings his mangled body back to me,
pulling himself like a limbless ox,
and he falls in a dark heap on my floor.
Surrounding him: the trophies of our lives,
bones sucked clean of flesh.
I tidy them in his honor, pile them neatly
at the edges of the cave.
Blood pools at his head
and takes on its own life,
spreads its blackness outward.
I dip my finger in and take a taste.
It is my own blood. I recoil from it.
My boy: thrashing about on the floor,
wailing for his life.
Here is your mother, I say, standing over him.
It is my own language; he has never understood it.
I cup my hand and push at the blood,
willing it back into the shredded lump
at his shoulder.
It does not move.
He quiets.
My love ends here.
2.
It is dark when I venture from the cave and
onto the moors. There is the hall among the hills,
like a fleck of gold in feces.
I run on four limbs, the taste of my boy’s blood
still on my tongue.
I enter the hall as a beast,
stand howling in the doorway,
but falter. Nailed above my head:
The twisted mass
of his severed limb. Frayed at the base,
dripping black,
it is a boast of their murder. I shriek.
A sea of soldiers turn to me,
smelling of violence, eyes like cesspools,
absorbing all light. Swords seem almost
to retrieve themselves,
throwing their hilts into hands
of men. One man stands frozen
at his harp, wide-eyed, fingers
hovering at the chords.
He is committing my face to memory,
creating notes for each wrinkle.
I am a mother, I tell him. Surely you can capture that.
There is no understanding
between us.
Then I close in my fist
a drunken fool who has ventured
too close, and I run from the hall.
If they try to follow, they will find on my beach
his severed head, frayed at the base,
dripping red.
3.
He brings himself to me,
the one who killed my boy.
I feel him in the water.
There he is, my enemy:
Only feet below the surface,
silhouetted by the dimpled light of my home.
I meet him halfway, grasping at his armored torso,
pulling him deeper, homeward.
He sputters and coughs on the cave floor,
pitiful, muscled body trembling, having found
no easy journey through the sea.
Then, raising himself with an unseen strength,
he rushes me, sword glinting,
teeth bared like a wolf in heat.
His sword shatters on my shoulder.
It stings like a wasp; I brush it off quickly.
He pants, back heaving.
I was his mother, I say, standing over him.
How dare you.
My language falls uselessly around him.
I wrap him in my legs, my hair against
his mail, and I raise a knife to him.
It does no good, caught
in his metal. He grins
and pulls himself from me, spitting
senseless sounds and saliva
at my face. His breath is sour,
drunk with violence. I know
this story, have seen my boy sing it
on the darkening floor.
From the edge of the cave,
a trophy finds him: a Giant’s sword,
shining gold.
He brings it to me.
I touch my neck and feel blood.
Raising my finger,
I take a taste.