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