A Poem About the Mothers

Our Mothers 

I’m filled with my sisters’

whispers; their rustling

hem-lines slog a tread-

heavy gait while

lead-heavy cross-

beams encumber their

elegant shoulders;

bruising indignant stride

as the path winds

onward, upward,

daunting as

Golgatha.

I have often admired

the hushed mothers’

wounds: the holes

in their hands, the

scars in their sides.

I tell my daughters

they did it for me—

spilt their blood

for the daughters—

opened their seared lips

and broke their

bound wrists

for us. I whisper,

they are splinters

in my voice; slivers

of gold that

make my brown

eyes hazel. I tell them

that the mothers

are inside

me

and my sisters-

we climb hills.