Pray, mother, my sweet goddess, kindness hung
and incarnate, pray I never become you.
Love in my heart beats to the sound of your
footstep, thumping for years before my birth.
I'll see its end and it kills me; heavy.
Mother, your weathered smile–an act, or else
hysteria, perhaps both; eternal.
Let me pray for my mother, forgive now.
Caustic though she is, falsely assurèd
Is she right? (More often wrong–I'm sorry,
mother, but my pen will not lie: a sin.
Even in this, I betray you; sin oft,
assign merit to my father's insults;
how interesting, horrible–typical.)
Asking this wholly misses the point.
Heart, she has, and full, blossoming lungs, too,
and stretched-out, hollow womb. Is it final?
That weathered smile again,
but with more feeling.
I love you,
I am sorry, I am
I am your daughter
Find me battered and toothy,
but still smiling for you,
my mother, if only in my heart,
if only in my body,
if only in my chest.
Merlot, Rhiannon
