Every Day is Mother’s Day
by Kika Dorsey

Even now,
in January, as children
skate on black ice to schools.
I unearth my daughter’s cards
stored next to my bed.
One is a collage of an angel
propping up a baptism,
the holy ghost,
winged and white,
diving headfirst into a haloed man.
Rams and sparrows,
the earth round at the man’s feet.
How heavy the waters.
Another card a sketch of purple flowers,
another full of pink hearts.

The crown of my head
spills stars into an orbit
and let me tell you
how it never changed.
No matter the changes
I never made in time.
No matter the turbid waters,
the angels burdened by my weight
and sometimes lying
when they said they carried it with ease.
They were the person I wanted to be.
They were the mother I sometimes couldn’t be.
It is January and it is still Mother’s Day.
I am trying.

The rams remind me of my daughter.
They are encircled by holly.
In one image a ram is holding a branch
in its mouth and leaping.
In another a ram looks back.
Behind me are footprints
on a blue globe.
There is no white in it,
no clouds at all,
all ocean, all water,
pouring all over me.



 

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