Elegy for Mother, Still Living

The Lord gives everything and charges
by taking it back.
—Jack Gilbert

I was formed inside the body

of a woman who wanted me

as she wanted her own life,

allowed to drink the milk

made only for me.

I was given mother-love,

its bounty and its cocoon

of those first years without language.

It is right to mourn the rocky hills

of Crete where we walked, my small

hand in hers for hours. The hidden

beach where we swam naked

then baked on the fine sand. Lazy

afternoons in her lap, her thick

hand stroking my curls.

Her fingers have stiffened.

Her eyes, the eyes of an animal in pain.

I hold my mother

against the woman she is.

Source: Mother Country (BOA Editions, Ltd., www.boaeditions.org, 2020)