Remothering: A Need but not an Antidote

I am writing the poem before the words

while the words are still arriving.

I am holding the crying babies

and the crying inner children,

both as they choke on the air

on its way out of them.

I am raging while my rage

is festering quietly,

and even that feels ripples

that are cascades and horizons

and cliffs and creaky floors

and places from childhoods

spilling into adulthoods

before you feel older.

You’re waiting to feel older;

checking your phone’s calendar instead

of some frozen inner clock;

telling yourself to let clocks have the quirk

of

flashing unmarked

whenever the wind or the snowfall

knocks out the power.

Legs are braided

arms are cradling

chin touching forehead

tears giving away inner states.

Expanding then shrinking

sighing then heaving;

wanting to be there and stopping.

Tenderness soothes hesitation to show

glimpses of remothering.

Shards really; left scattered on the same

floors that you walked

through barefoot and uncarefully.

Other hips than your mothers

offered other forms of nourishment,

and still do.

Other lullabies were sung

while another’s hips swayed and held you,

and their burdens did not become your burdens.

Their stories have not all been told;

and yours they trust haven’t either.

Get lost in their landing pad.

Salve is being made from childhoods

and mothers that still wound.

Ripples upon ripples

traveling outside of them and us

and them with us.