Variations on the Word Mother

   (with thanks to Maragaret Atwood) 
 
This is a word we use to hang our lives on.
It’s the right shape for the small curves of
our pain, the lonesome lines of our
     failures, for those
     loaf-shaped warm feelings –
     airy – both substantial and not.
Wrap it in plastic and buy it once a
     year:   here, Mom, thanks for
     my life.
     I think.
 
We use this word to shake out our freedom
and to rattle our chains
We use this word to hold our daughters
When what we have really become is a
    weight within their lives. 
 
There are whole years filled with fear of
    this word – trying not to be
    what came before
    slowly seeing how 
    we are exactly that
Hoping that our daughters will be more
    and seeing our own
    fears in the gaze they
    turn on us

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