Heirlooms

I mother.
I shoulder
deep hurts and things longed for.
I anger
at anything, broad or thorned,
and when I yell it is not at you
or your small upturned beggar’s face.

It is for me,
begging, still, at thirty.
I want to make you cocoa and cuddle against
your acquiescence and your little Gap wool sweater
and tell you that you will be better
than all these many years of wasted worry,
but it doesn’t work like that.

You’ll mother.
You’ll shoulder
little sharp arrows of blame.
You’ll anger
at everything, wide and near,
and when you’ll yell it will not be at your children
or even at me, whose body held yours the closest.

It will be for you,
for the wide open wonder of the world
and your inability to throw off all the grabbing hands
to explore it.
For not wanting to.
For kissing each finger, for pressing each palm in paint
and smacking it against cardstock and dating the corner.
For another year,
another, another,
each a portion of tunnel connecting to the last,
so long you’ll forget your way back to the
new gasped air of the
beginning and all the undiscovered places
you’ll read about
while we sleep.