I am morphing
into a metaphor or a simile of me
my twenties growing on me,
branching out, like an Elm stretching
my thoughts, my worries, like leaves
extend beyond
my realm
myself,
my mother’s grasp

I wish I could be more for you, mum
more than the nomadic poetess I’ve become:
pockets empty, words I can’t say
brimming along eyelids,
roaming city to city,
poems foaming from my mouth.

I am sorry I am not more
like you had hoped,
envisioned,
intended;
more like
that summer memory of yourself,
a little Brighton pebble of a girl
who adored her mother
and wanted to be a mother just like her
. And maybe you are

like mother Earth, you’'d birth
as many as that womb could reap
you'’d sacrifice yourself,
your health,
your life,
and I admire your benevolence.

I can see you now,
as you were when I was young,
you——giddy as a kid on a roundabout—
reveling in the innocence and imagination
of infants,
before they get to that age
that makes you so crazy
you have to just run away for a while
like that afternoon when I was about six or seven

but still, you’'d have as many children
as could fill you——fill that void,
that moon crater chasm in you,
in your belly, the throbbing ache
of miscarriages, three times trumped; cheated,

of fertility, unfettered
guilt, shame, blame, and yes, pain
I learned of your brave daddy,
who never flew home
from WWII to greet your arrival

never held your tiny hand,
but you have his picture, somewhere
him standing tall and proud
in a full-green uniform, paper yellowing
with the years on a Kodak square.

With absentee nostalgia, he left you
coddling yourself, your mother too,
but now, you’re crazy enough to keep it all inside
where no one can abandon you,
hurt you, blame you,
understand you,
and it’s like I hardly know you.

So maybe we aren’t so alike, …but I wonder
if you'’ll ever grow to accept me
as I fight to grow to be a simile
of what you want
without denying
my need for truth
my seething determination
my catlike cautiousness
my tattooed, sexual, multiple-piercing persona
you are so quick to dismiss as anything
but what it is…

but what it is, I suppose, must be difficult for you
to face, like those photos from your past,
to face the women we've have both become
but I wonder
what did you have planned for me

and that millionaire I never brought home,
and my naked ring finger,
and my naked womb
that never felt
naked
until I realized
you were waiting for more
than me.

03/01/2006

Author's Note: This was written some time ago, but finally I had to let it breathe, ;) thanks JK. REVISED: 10/5/11.

Posted on 03/01/2006
Copyright © 2024 Julie Adams