Hoping for a symphony
Expecting just a penny whistle.
Praying for a miracle
Getting a vague promise.
Looking for the Hollyhocks
Finding wilted daisies.

Offering a helping hand
Finding no one needs one.
Asking for a helping hand
No one reaches out to me.
Giving one last urgent try
I write my number on the wall.

And hunker down behind a hedge
To see if anybody reads it.
Or if they only walk on by
Pursuing other goals and visions
That have no bearing on my needs
And leave me here with hands outreaching.
ljm

I am a mother without a child
Who comes to me for comfort.
I am a mother with a child
Who walked away from loving care
And chose to be a distant friend
Instead of a loving daughter

I am a mother with only one
Who really wanted to have two,
And wouldn’t have been sad at three.
But never won the right to choose
And had to make the best of what
Was offered as my portion.

Fifty years have come and gone
Plus two more for good measure.
The gap has narrowed not a whit
And my path still skirts the chasm.
I reach with practiced carefulness
To read the card that is my lot
As a mother with no daughter.
ljm

I’ve walked beside you
Behind you
Broke your fall
     And never told you
      
Sliced my tongue on the words of others
To cut them off before they reach you

Picked thorns
                     Before embedded
Opened your eyes before you notice
                     What you can’t see

Hoped for a reaction
                     A gasp
                     A stumble
                     A something
Anything

Even if you said I was nothing
I could walk away
Owning a presence
              That may have been worthy
              Of a second glance

I don’t know why
But I know
Because I feel

Because something pulls me
               To become inverted
                              
                   Motionless
                   Within salt water

To surrender myself
To absorb song
                      Unknown language
                      Through saline

I hear their voices calling
from arboreal gloom
The things in the forest
luring children to their doom

The pumpkin faces grimace
glistening in the dusk
Mist rising in the darkness
A cloying hanging must

A cursed hollow in the depths
Gnarled faces in the bark
Gentle songs waft on the wind -
then screaming in the dark

Villagers search frantically
kin missing from their bed
a hopelessness and sorrow
and endless, gnawing dread

Lately night demons
armed with maps and
searching questions
are slain and drained
with little pain.
I walked barefoot
over broken glass
But if it wasn’t thus
it wouldn’t be me
with you now us
So I wouldn’t change
the smallest iota;
you’re where
I’m supposed
to be