To Nurture

My mother is a mirage

in a waste

of land

I created myself.

During all of my lifetime that I wanted her love;

always, always she was beckoning:

Peace, peace, my child

I'll touch and caress and

speak sweet mana, so softly,

into your soft eardrums,

I’ll ---

and always, each time, I've responded:

Mama, please

while I gallop my awkward self to her.

And never have I not,

not one time,

have I not sunk slowly,

until all at once the quicksand

of the mirage

was my mother

and my mother

was the mirage

and I had nothing in my lungs

but a siphon of the quickest

sand you can imagine.

As endless as any suffocating you can think of, too.

Of course, I spew it out as quickly as my lungs

fill; elephant sized but heavier,

sandbags,

but you can imagine

How exhausting that's been.