Because You're Worth It

Abstract

Mother's Day You braced inside the rim and, practicing, your feet of my ribs pushed off. Because You're Worth It They've come. You embrace the word parents as any good daughter should. Their encircled arms leave you gasping somehow, as if tangled beneath an uprooted Kansas farmhouse. Really dear, your mother frowns at the windows. They are your eyes onto the world. Your eyes, dear. How can you stand not to see clearly? You offer her the other cheek to kiss. Gripping his tools like sawed-off weapons, your father asks what needs fixing. He's not the same, she whispers once he disappears into the blackened cellar. Since he retired he prowls the house like it's a vendetta sworn with his blood. You suck peanut butter from a spoon and listen to the naked sound of hammer on nail. They've gone. You call the bakery, ten minutes to closing. The small fluffy cake seems orphaned on the glass shelf. Pink and green garlands blossom like hot cream in your mouth, heal like silk tongues going down. —Linda P. Burggraf I remember your head in the funnel of my bones ready to be bom how I knew the waters must part the cord be cut the bowl of our whole life be broken Now, again we have come full term knowing birth can crush the child's head can crack the mother's spine: but the cure for birth is death One engaged the other we brace our selves in leaving in letting go for departure. —George Ella Lyon \ ? ^.·/¦" " S\ /r.' Vi.' 9*21 ...