Mothers Be Poets

this week Adrienne Rich died
her stories about mothering made me
understand how alone I felt
as the milk sprayed from my breasts
and my baby cried endlessly
and my own dead mother dead

who was I /all milk?

I want/ed to be a mother
but I wanted to be more /too

she sweet creamy
white and bald
yet I (still)
motherless
marching back
and forth
under a dark
sky a baby
wailing

if you have an angry
hate/love you mom teenager
the glass breaks

Adrienne Rich make/s sense

she got it right when she said
you give and give
and then they grow up

in the stillness of separation~ 

a red hawk swoops past and tells of another way~

shift that m/otherhood
of emptiness and grief

fill your womb with
dreams of wild birds &
unbroken horses

oh mothers need to be mothers
and more then 'mothers'
(who let their blood)

oh mothers be poets!