mother kiss me like candles burn wax
i drink your flower petal milk

little fingers grasping ample flesh
rose of love

i have never known

in truth i never really knew you at all
not your loving heart
not your milk giving
not your abandoned soul
your sadness

nor understood
the betrayal of father

you're just a floating face now
except of course for your inner trembling
and white knuckle desolation

your bleeding heart is in me

mother your  élan pulses through my marrow
and i see you in so many women
through their soft eyes that breathe me in

those women dreaming of love
for a man they never knew
and hopes of a better life they never had

feeling you mother
and vapors coil from light
in the theater of your ghost