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.
