Time ticks,
talks,
taps, and
taxes

“You will be punished
You will submit to the father”

Well
what if I told you
That I can bend time
over time
and
Wrap it around my finger
With the intensity and touch
of orange flames
of hate
and a mother’s love

Those two have found a way to live together
Inside me

You will see that you have made a grave mistake
in not knowing me

The white hot bars you find yourself caged in, years from now,
my rage will have put there
in collecting its vengeance

I am your children’s mother
It is my fingers combing through the hair on their heads, mapping the contours and inspecting
the symmetry inside

It is my gaze that is etched in the back of their eyes
Like a petroglyph, for all things past and all things future
to filter
through

It was my face they saw with the first light
And likely mine they will see with the last.

Yours has been but a much more minor role,
organic, but chemical
present, but not there
Something hard to push against
in the negative space

exactly as you wanted it.