This poem appeared in (M)othering: an anthology, published by Innana Publications of Toronto in 2022.

MOTHERING MY MOTHER

We hold our stories in our bodies
tend them like eggs
release them one
by one.

I’m mothering
my mother
pacing my steps to hers
seeing the world with her eyes.
When a story comes
she smiles
a memory unbidden
an egg of a story
nurtured and kept
for many years
like a welcomed child.

She releases her story
and I catch it
tend it in my body,
in the hollow place
inside.

I’m mothering
my mother
holding her soft hands
stopping often
to look at her world.
Her stories are buried so deep
they may never hatch,
trapped in a tangled nest
of a brain. She is a fragile shell
of herself, freed now
from the relentless passage
of stories, of children
and time.

I’m mothering
my mother
saying goodbye
but afraid to release her
to the world.

Stories spill from her eyes
as she grasps my hands,
then simply lets me go.

Photo Credit: Katherine Matiko