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She has never worried for my sake—
carpooling forty minutes to work security, nights—
because pity tints her hair dewy gray:
the color is a blown light bulb
rattling its filament like aluminum
that battles the conveyor belt,
reluctant of sacrifice.
Her eyes ache with distance, swelling—
I see Thanksgiving, dry and red—
until she floats her fingers to her temples:
the massage is a ceremonial pyre,
rubbing crow’s feet that sag
like the flapping tendrils
of a frayed flag.
I tell her she can’t always pity her childhood—
pity all children—
when wasted youth is a smelting furnace:
we forge new desire from old
like the salute of tears cleansing ashy lips
of unspoken praise for thirteen fingers
caressing fifty milk-soaked stars.
But she was coagulated from starchy elixir—
soft and pure white, like those stars—
daughter of fatherless neglect:
she steeps in misery like smoke,
her sons—our sons—suffering
the trials of motherhood spent
in limbo, in a dream.
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