mothering
January 27, 2012
mothering is what she does,
carrying their troubles into the safety of her own breast
sheltering the children from all pain that is love, that is the dry pebbles in scraped knees.
the rain on Sunday afternoons pooled in the balcony’s potholes,
made ripples and waves til December turned it to ice.
the children are in her breast, carried over the ice so as not to damage these cherub toes.
the children passed flowering cherry blossom trees on their way to school, when they were small,
and mother had a glass cup half full of water where the pickings would go:
flowers ardently plucked from unsuspecting gardens, and dandelions.
they held bread in their fingers, and peas and carrots haphazardly in their hair,
she laughed the same way she did when her womb was brimming with the secrets-
the ones only she knew, the ones carried in her breast.
the awkward bunches of flowers in cups wilt,
the children now know dandelions are weeds.
