Mothers Day
Sitting on the lip of my bathtub,
hunched over the edge,
dripping and draped in terry cloth
I cry out, "Oh God".
I pray.
More sincerely than I have since I lost my faith.
I am certain someone is listening.
I am certain of this because I need it to be true.
In forty-nine minutes it will be mother's day.
I cry out, "Oh God. I love her".
And I do.
More sincerely than I have since I left the pasture.
It is overwhelming and horrifying.
After all this, I still love her.
After all this
she loves me too.
How can it be so?
Now that I am a heretic
Now that I am her failure.
After the things we've said to each other.
How can there be any love left?
I've come back through
my mother's pasture, prodigal daughter.
Cresting the grassy hill I used to watch all day
and long for, wondering if the Northwind felt freer
than me.
I am looking at her:
stubborn and weeping
and loving.
She always loved me. I was hers
before I was even my own.
And it is painfully plain.
All that transpired beaten trivial under the bludgeoning
of loving
and being loved.
Mama, when you die I will weep.
Because there is something deeper than betrayal
And it is devotion.
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