
A Prayer For My 17-Year-Old Son on the Other Side of the Door
Let me flatten my soft spots, roll out my breasts like batter dusted with flour. Let me press down on my pointed, mothered parts. Sweeten my edges until I cut like butter. Knead me into a shape as thin as time and slide me under his door. Let me rise like dough. Let me mist into the air he breathes. Let me settle within him. Let me slip into spaces he locks and let me leave my tracks all over the floor of his secrets. Give me the passwords to his silences and let me grieve beside him. Turn my womb into water and let me swim in the sea of all I'll never know. Let me be still. Let me stand at the mouth and watch what he won't let me see. And then, let me tuck a piece of this wet love of mine into the cave he's come to call home. Let him feel its throbbing, silver dollar weight. Let him taste the burnt offering imprinted on his tongue at birth. Let him remember all his eyelashes have names. The word beloved belongs to him. Oh, God— just for today—please let me be enough.
3 replies on “A Prayer For My 17-Year-Old Son on the Other Side of the Door”
Wow. This one knocked me over.
Your words resonate and move me. How well I know this sense of loss and longing which you have so poignantly conveyed.
This is a moving, universal truth that I feel deeply in my own mother being. Thank you, dear poet.