On Mother’s Day
I tore out the buttercups that had grown up
below the red raspberry vines
and their
tiny
spiny
thorns drew blood in scratches from my wrists to my shoulders
It was the next day when my husband felt my torn up skin and asked what happened, that I replied
‘I’ve been tending my garden,
I’m a mother,
haven’t you noticed,
I’ve made things grow.’
I look at my babies,
a child,
their bodies,
our fruit
Would I recognize each individual limb?
Severed, would I know it?
My garden grew it
My own body grew it
In the dark, in the damp
Under the cover of a thicket of thorns.
So I tend to my garden children
and they tend to me.
Young verdurous buttercups
Warm wounded flesh
Forgotten about until felt,
And then reminded
Startled by the adoration of
perspiration tingling abrasions.
My boys watch me in the bathroom in the weeks following the birth of their sister
And they ask if I am still bloody.
‘Why bloody mum?’
‘Crack open mum?’
Yes I’ve cracked open. I’ve cracked wide open for you all, like every mother, our bodies formed a crevasse when you left
A devastation
I bled for you, because of you
My blood was your oxygen
and now I can’t keep you alive with a sigh
So instead I place my hands on your ribs and your hands on my cheeks and we breathe
‘I love you’s’
Until deep under my fingers
Deeper than your intercostals
Expanding
On your silly exhaled ‘you’
Your alveoli of rich red blood are fed.
Water me,
shower me,
Graze your hand along the top of my baby hairs like a tomato seedling in the greenhouse
Pretend to be the wind so I can withstand it all.
But if I must be torn from the ground
touch me tenderly,
exploratively
Hold me up under your chin
And I’ll remind you of the riches of a mothers butter
Buttercup Collection
Garments that were sewn in the summer sun, rich in buttery sun soaked silk, linen, and cotton. Photographed on a warm evening while walking through my neighbourhood woods and meadows.
Ready to Ship, and available online June 24th at 2pm pst.
