The One Wish Granted

My impossible made possible is that I could have a sprawling house large enough to shelter and bring up every unwanted child. All of them. That I could have enough money to educate them in whatever discipline they had a natural talent for – music, math, art, science. That I could keep, love, and mother them until they were old enough to live and thrive on their own.

I’d take them all. No questions asked of you, the parents. No judgment for why you don’t want him, why she doesn’t fit in with your schedule, why they’re mistakes you have to wipe clean, why they’re accidents or ugly mementos.

I’ll take them. You don’t have to see them ever again.

Just don’t kill them, please. Please, don't.

To my Momma, on her Birthday

What will I ever know of what you are—

What in you gave up nights of rest,

What you saw about me

So worth giving up

the better for you

for the best for me?

Leisure time scratched out by

A trip to the park,

Prestige in the ER,

To be my doctor,

To write love with a feather-stroke touch

on a bruised head,
                raw knees, 

a thousand bee-stings, 

and a stabbed back.

 A chance for a manicure, a new dress,

Traded in for candy bars and toy horses,

A night at the movies

For a theatrical production of

Polly Pockets and Playdough.

When I boarded the plane for college—

A smile for me

Instead of the tears that would make me stay.

I think I recall

that you said once or so,

“I’m not beautiful,

It’s you that shines”—

I must wonder how anyone

Other than a swan

Could give the world a cygnet like me,

As you say that you have.

[This is a post long over-due. My apologies, readers. Summer pulled me along willy-nilly, and I've barely done anything on my computer other than briefly checking emails and Facebook. But I am back.]