Undertone

Motherhood is a perpetual grief. I see you, skin separate from my skin and I am stretched a hollowing elongation my body split in two. Fact: bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh my breath was your breath my blood your life and now the same life to life, milk to mouth. But in a series of celebrations I taste loss on my tongue. You sit, you stand, you sound out your own sounds with your soft skin flexing and stretching and changing and I do not know if my heart can swell to the size your distance demands as though these growing pains of yours tug sharp in my belly where I bore you where I bear you as my closest secret. Motherhood is one long loss from skin to speech and no one told me how to grieve it.