still...

The day's coming when I

will no longer consider my

presence inexpiable.

Franz Wright

i hang up the phone, fire

burning in that space just

below that bone, where that

cluster of nerves radiates

like rays of the sun, my own

personal oracle of delphi,

minus apollo and laurel

leaves, more like

molten steel, no hiding

here

i touch that space, cradle

my bosom like i cradled

my babies and wonder

when or if ever i will

receive clemency or

maybe mercy, or

maybe clarity

how to weave womanhood

and motherhood and

wisdom and silence and

realness and resilience

hell is real

yesterday screams a billboard

on the side of a freeway

i hold my body, still unsure

how to inhabit my being, all

the stages and ages, how to

be here, today in this moment,

unfrozen, not there with too

many histories too long

ignored, some days i am five,

some days hell is too close

and still i am mother and still

my babies who are not babies

need to believe and need a rock,

a dock to hook their wayward

sails to because we all need to

believe

and still i am human and i know

they do not want to see the

june cleaver version of me, the

the woman i watched in black

in white, me a latchkey kid

wishing i was beaver and she

was my mom, all pearled up

with chocolate chip cookies

at the door after school

but there was never a hair out

of place, there was never a need

to say

sorry

and when my mama would

come home with messy hair

so sweaty from riding her

borrowed bicycle from job to

job to job she'd scoop me up

and say i love you

and i believed her

and still i sit and still i hold

and still believe and still i

try and still...