Mothers by Shams Alkamil

Mothers

poetry by Shams Alkamil

sometimes, i feel them with me, softly opening my mouth when the pain is too much not to spit daggers. angry with me, for me. i wear their presence like a cloak, except when a man says he loves me; it becomes too hard to remember. but it is (ok). after decades of cloak-imprints, i carry their grief in vertebrae that refuse to be bricked. mothers escape when my heart fleets, mothers tag-team to collect a man’s lies. i wonder: which man is responsible? for stealing shared breaths in my lineage? which man is responsible? for making my first mother unlovable? & which man fashions his cloak today?

sometimes, i extra feel them with me, when i see mama's face contort as jido grew upset. her face shifts like a glitch in the matrix. one second she is a divorcee, another she is 8. she is 8 and afraid of men. she is 8 and unlovable.

slowly, our voices pitch up and turn into a question to make men believe they are the answer. they are never the answer.

does he grow hard even though

is he too dumb to ever know the difference? &i wonder,

we only pretend to practice subservience?

&so i wonder,

55 sometimes, i step on a crack just to curse myself. because all the mothers

before i was a mother, are dead. it is merely a small act of kindness it is only fair their backs break. this way: i am the newest mother. the newest burden.

&i wonder, how much worth my sticky tongue offers if it twangs & tweeds the diaspora telephone game?

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