Strangers who smile at you
Women
Mothers who know
Tell me there will come a time
When you won’t call
Unless you wife reminds you
To share the soccer score
She, pretty, prodding sweetly,
Duty-bound, uninvested,
Trying not to nag,
Drops a fleeting thought between bites
Of a distant family dinner
God, will I really be grateful
For tally reports?
I just want to hear your voice
My son
The man I birthed
And nursed
And as recently as Sunday’s supper crumbs
Held like no one else
You are not even two
Yet ubiquitous fear already carves
A deep, early place
In my new mother’s heart
A stain on a patchwork quilt
Of present-tense
I cannot presoak and remove
Sometimes as you sleep nearby
curled small in your crib
I find myself preparing
For a time
When infrequent phone calls are enough
Hoping beyond all hope
That mothers can be wrong
A contest entry
- Angst/Dark poems with hopeful endings, please! by Mysteriously Sincere.
410 points, ended June 1, 40 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
What did you think
Comments
1 - 5 of 5
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Wow this is very touching. I felt every line as I read it.
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This really got to me. I'm a bit young to really understand this perspective, but I really love how this conveys your feelings.
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My son is about to graduate high school; he's our only child. My husband says he'll always be our baby
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Oh, my heart so goes out to you. Of course, he will be. Even when he's 80. :-) (I tell this to my boys, now 5 and 8, all the time.) Life is so bittersweet, isn't it? I wish him--and you--a smooth and successful start to this new chapter in your lives. (What do YOU want to do, once you have this new freedom in your life?)
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It has occurred to me that I won't need to set a good example all the time, lol; so there's no telling what I might do
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