Honey-Dipped and Other Poems
Honey-Dipped
Mom, will you play with me?
you asked,
your voice honey-dipped,
the beckoning of a young heart
wanting to connect.
Sure, in a minute, I said
as if dishes or laundry or vacuuming
carried any importance,
as if cleanliness
could replace connection.
Later, I held your action figures
in my hands. I made them move
just as you said and you giggled
that infectious laugh
when I used poison ivy
as a weapon.
Mom, will you play with me?
you asked, again and again,
so many times.
I can still hear your voice
dripping with the sweet nectar
of your plea.
I could have said yes
more often.
I wish I would have
tended to your desires
for nearness
unfailingly,
understood my full presence
equaled more than enough.
I wish I would have
grasped reality,
that one day
I would desperately want your attention,
just as you wanted mine
because now I am the one
with the sugary plea, asking
Do you want to do something with me?
and you are too busy
in your teenaged dreams.
I no longer own a coveted gaze
and you are unaware
that I’d abandon
anything if it meant
that you would look at me
the way you used to; everything
if you would take my hand in yours
once more and let me
into your atmosphere.
Becoming
With one child gone
from home,
one standing on the edge
of freedom,
begging to fly, I find my space
feels empty
yet alive.
I am middle-aged,
still wondering who I am.
I am still mending
old wounds. I am still unearthing
love for me that rivals
my love for you. I am still becoming
my own sacred space.
Still
a new woman
is being birthed
as old ways of being
slough away.
There is time now to explore
seeds of creativity
previously placed on hold.
Time now for discovering
my edges, expanding,
remaking internal landscapes.
I am still making sense
of the totality of this time,
while welcoming the invitation
to finally, fully
grow into me.
Stitching Songs
My mom taught me to sew
when I was just three years old
she gave me a jar of buttons,
a scrap of cloth, and I
come up at one, down
at two, gently pulling thread
through
sewed with gusto,
carefully choosing favorites,
stitching them down,
while mom stitched beside me, and I
unravel and cut, weave
needle through cloth, continuing
on to the final knot
didn’t know then my first love was born,
that stitching would save me,
even when I was too sick to stand.
And with time on my hands, I
insert right needle, front
to back, wrap a loop, pull
through the crack
learned to knit, discovered a calm
I didn’t know I missed.
Knit stitches kept me from going under,
from losing my mind as a mother and I
knit one stitch, purl
two, repeat this pattern
all the way through
practiced steadily, learning every kind of stitch,
using them to unwind,
to pull me back from the edges
of this parenting life and then I
slip hook into stitch, pull up
a loop, wrap yarn again,
pull through all with a scoop.
taught my daughter to crochet.
She writes patterns all her own,
showing a confidence I’ve always longed to know.
And as she stitches toward her future, I stitch my life back together
and my mom, the master stitcher, revels in the legacy we create together.
LACI HOYT wants to live in a world where kindness is a priority and everyone owns at least one hand-knit sweater. She writes from her home in upstate NY about living with chronic illness, love and relationships, and any other thing she can’t get out of her head. Her writing has been published through The Kindred Voice. When she’s not writing, she can be found with knitting needles and yarn, hunched over the sewing machine, or creating unique dolls and bags for her Etsy shop. Every Sunday, you can find a new haiku published on her blog. Visit Laci at www.liviatree.blogspot.com.
