Weekly Read: “Letter to a Dead Mother” by Martha Silano
BLR’s Weekly Read brings you one outstanding story, poem, or essay from our archive. This week’s read is “Letter to a Dead Mother” by Martha Silano, from Issue 44. Our editors were saddened to learn that Martha passed away this past May, a great loss to the literary community.
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Thinking of you as I pick up flecks of oats from the kitchen floor,
put them back in the container. You know, the five-second rule.
The floor shakes as the washing machine clicks to Spin,
and I consider how many loads of laundry, how many times
you got down on your knees to mop a floor. When you left,
you took nothing. We were your couldn’t children,
and you seemed fine with that, especially toward the end,
swallowing your come see me’s like brambles, like bees.
Kept your dying angels, your breaking-wave headlines
to yourself….
Why this poem?
“This poem never fails to get me. Right from the title, the reader knows they are in for something personal, emotional, and perhaps a little unsettling, given the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters. The portrait Martha paints in just a handful of lines is stunning — a compact glimpse into family history, humor, sacrifice, and longing.
If you are lucky enough to have a mother or grandmother in your life, don’t wait to make that call or visit. Martha was a special, talented poet, and we’re so glad that BLR is home to this remarkable poem.”
– Stacy Bodziak, BLR Managing Editor
More from Martha
Martha Silano was the author of six poetry collections, most recently Terminal Surreal (Acre Books, 2025), about her journey with ALS; Last Train to Paradise: New and Selected Poems (Saturnalia Books, 2025); and This One We Call Ours (Lynx House Press, 2024), winner of the 2023 Blue Lynx Prize. Her awards included North American Review’s James Hearst Poetry Prize and The Cincinnati Review’s Robert and Adele Schiff Award.
In 2024, Terrain.org hosted an online reading in tribute to Martha. Eleven poets gathered to read poems from her collection This One We Call Ours, including “Letter to a Dead Mother.”