Motherhood

I remember the way your face
sticky
came into the low light of that close, hot room.
You existed.
I held you all night long, and rocked you.
Exhausted.
Until the sun came up, I touched you
counted perfect toes and
impossible, lovely fingers.
Full of wonder.
I thought:
This is what it is, to be a mother.

For the first months of your life
you cried all night
I fed you
You sucked life from me with your cries and your pull
and gave it back in smiles and light.
I walked you, coddled you, touched your face
sticky with tears.
You roared
Hiccupped.
Full of exasperation.
I thought:
This is what it is,
to be a mother.

You grew and grew
you learned to walk
we were there—
Father, Mother, family
holding out our arms, extended
to you
each begging:
come to me!
Walk to me!
Choose me!
You smiled and toddled to each of us in turn,
your love,
so indiscriminate
as much for the neighbor who
you had never met
as for me
who pulled you out of my own body
Full of jealousy and self-reproach.
I thought:
This
Is what it is, to be
a mother.

Six years old
You could read now
so big
so smart.
No longer pulling life from my body, but venturing
further and further away.
You fell
you said
And in your words, concealed, I saw:
I was tripped
by those nasty little snots next door
little ghetto brats
gang members in waiting
I remember your face
sticky
crying with tears and blood.
I wiped your cut
and held you
hiccupping
Pure protective fury.
I thought:
This is what
it is
to be a mother.

One day, tugging at my skirt with sticky fingers
asking for a treat.
The next, big enough to travel
to have adventures.
One day I lost you, at the festival.
The fair.
The family reunion.
Mixed wires, crossed signals
Is he with you?
Don’t you have him?
I thought-
You mean- he’s not—
Panic
fear, black and sticky like a suffocating tar
This time it was me who cried
and you were calm.
You were fine,
fine,
of course you were fine.
And I snapped at you the whole way home.
For making me a fearful fool.
And then, full of regret.
Still afraid with an ominous surety.
Full of dread.
I thought:
This is what
it
is, to be a mother.

You left home
when years demanded you
a man, now
with friends
more precious to you than family
you loved them more than me.
I packed a lunch for you,
sticky with dates
on which I made you promise to come home
and watched you go, my arms
stretched open to you, but you did not see
my heart crying,
Come back to me!
Walk to me!
Choose me!
The fear of you, lost
still sticky in my chest.
Full of desolation and pain,
I thought,
THIS is what it means?
To be a mother?

And then
and then
and then
and then the day
How could they?
Your head, once sticky with birth, with newness
now slick again with blood
from rocks
and not rocks
flung by some other woman’s child
placed on you by her unruly brats.
They always picked on you, those neighbor boys
a ghetto tradition
I wish I had raised you in some immaculate city
Now the wars of our fathers claim my sons.
But they have wars in the cities, too.
Where could we have run, hidden, to spare you?
Cairo would not have been far enough.
Now you stand
drenched with sweat
sticky with blood and water
and now your arms are
the ones
stretched out wide, a splayed embrace
lacking a participant.
And now you say
come to me
walk to me
choose me.
And for that they kill you
and they take you
and they put you down and cover you with the earth.
I remember the night you were born.
My face, then
My face, now
As sticky with tears as
with blood
with birth
glinting in the firelight
full of emptiness
they have buried my heart.
I’m thinking.
This is what it means.
To be your mother.