Mother

Smiling with her broken spine as

we skipped along the cracks of 

suburban cement sidewalks.

Her sunlit knuckles and craters

down the sides of her hips.

“Where we once collided,”

She whispered into our three

soft rosy ears. “Took three chunks 

of my flesh, bones, my eyes.”

–

We glued her googly eyes to 

preschool posters on crispy blue 

construction paper. They sung 

With each of our steps. Danced

circles around our juvenile delirium.

We hung them on the fridge with

bottle cap magnets and alphabet soup.

–

But jam coated pinkie fingers

reaching for bottles of thick milk

knocked three spinning googly eyes

from their crispy blue construction paper.

They fell to the floorboards,

catching sight of thirty toes, dancing

to the world beyond what is known

in the craters of our mother’s hips. 

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