MOTHER OF by Matt Pasca

lotion & hose water

teacakes & silence

 

of mulch & soup simmer

mother of talcum &

 

tabby cat, secrets & guilt

chocolate cream pie

 

& rugelach Mother of every

wound made holy, Seven

 

Valleys & 95 beads against

human malice Mother of

 

flox & tigerstone, of bangles

& ladybugs cast over leaves

 

of teetering between ecstasy & debris

Nine is the number of completion

 

she will say, then amble

off to find you a book

 

a poster, an October tomato

while proclaiming the dawn

 

of a new age My mother laying

a stone for your crossing

 

a spectacled Shadchan pairing

stamens with pollen-wild bees

 

My Ashkenazi mother, my Baha’i mother

of eggplant & turpentine

 

gauze & insulin, knife-necked

& working overtime in the factory

 

of an understaffed God Mother of

grief & needles, paint & leotards

 

My mother & I pretending, across

silver racks of shopping mall

 

Toughskins, to live beyond

our foxholes My mother of fight

 

of here, of whatever it took

to almost set me free