waves move mountains
water so “soft” yet over
eons like titanium drill
as continents fall tides
mean more than a romance
with Pacific or Caribbean
motherhood, trapped sea
child swimming inside reef
of progenitor, she lifts two
gravities, holds two
emotional lines
tethering child to
her cave, body solid
twin lives soon
separated, cleaved from
matriarchal beachhead
you leave shared orbits
this infant moves slowly
no wildebeest she
holds child as baby
chips away into her
own series of statues
against all odds
mother is at heart
of child even in her rebellion
like waves pounding
clay silt flowering
into crumbling islands
the sea holds you
the sound of the birth
like outgoing tide
air currents
pushing albatross
mothers too
there is a spring inside
mother’s body
after gestation eclipsing
placental expurgation
body and soul connected
by air, currents upwellings
fused with sea ions
mother, daughter, lost
conversations
the day is flowery
set as a moment frozen
family sets a new table
leaves acrimony behind
yet women are burdening
themselves with lifting
children into sentient
people adults dancing
to new songs
the hum
humming of mother
child inside mother’s
reef, that daughter
is called to eclipsing
humanity, child to adult
mother never waiting
pulling child to her
years separated
the draw to that
cut umbilical
songs wrinkled time
mother grabbing
child to push her away
so daughter one day
will return, maybe
listening now to the
tide inside herself
the new life floating
in the daughter’s ocean
together we are one
sea, tides in and out
we are the mother sea
waiting for her
to pull us back away
from our own destruction
