Mother

A poem of comfort

Photo by Lux Graves on Unsplash

He flings an extra-long string-bean arm
across my back — Stay! — a command
from the back of his heart, the soft delicate place
behind where his nine-year-old bravado waves its shields,
and I know his tender need — I am his safety, his nucleus, his beginning.
I know that primal, animal yearning for Mommy — I can feel it shivering
inside my own cells, old and forty-something as they may be,
my wanting for her to hold me…