'Self-Portrait as Overbearing Mother in a Hitchcock Film'

THE NEW YORK SUN

By DARA MANDLE
August 1, 2007; Arts Section, Page 17

Given the events in the film world last week--the deaths of directors Michelangelo Antonioni and Ingmar Bergman--I thought it was appropriate that a poem of mine about movies was published.

SELF-PORTRAIT AS OVERBEARING MOTHER IN A HITCHCOCK FILM

A BOY’S BEST FRIEND IS HIS MOTHER.
—Anthony Perkins, Psycho

I don’t take tranquilizers. I endure
Janet Leigh, stunning, soaping: the whore.

Norman cared for me as for the hawks
he stuffed and hung over the hearth.

Ingrid Bergman was like a daughter—
She wouldn’t lock me in the fruit cellar—

In Notorious, a Nordic beauty
For my German son, a Nazi.

He came to me for help, she was a spy.
I knew what to do, he could be so shy.

My cigarettes, please. This is what we tried:
We poisoned her slowly, and she almost died.