a pre-written retrospective on motherhood

She kept having children
perhaps because
they all began babies,
who lay down quietly in her lap.

Nestled skin to skin,
full satisfied by all
her body had to give,
she delighted to be
emptied into them.

And then they flew
too far to follow,
followed dreams and girls
down roads
she hadn't chosen.

Now the stairs and hallways
rattle memories,
silence louder than
their shouting ever was.

She sits by the un-smudged
window, hands in her
empty lap,
quietly
sad and satisfied
in all her fullness.

to nurse

To tend,
or worry over,
in the case of wounds.
At a hospital,

to do a job,
a shift,
to lift and turn,
to measure, prod
and watch.

Here, in this darkened
room at dawn
it is love.
To give my
self, be emptied
and then filled

by the round
of her cheek, the
grasp of her tiny
fingers,
her weight in my lap,
content.