Motherlessness

Motherlessness, like joblessness, this state

I have entered, with my children

far away from home,

and my mother gone from this world:

a day of reminders in the farmer’s market,

abundant with babies and mothers,

toddlers and grandmothers, among the strawberries,

a day that proclaims itself dedicated

to the appreciation of mothers

makes me feel use-less.

 

My self-esteem is on the line,

now I am laid off too, dispensable,

the job eliminated  after all these years,

there was never a paycheck but 

the loss of  my worth measured by

a day of  no cards and flowers.

 

Like all the others, who by no fault of their own

when they loose their jobs

are still shamed by the myths of success

they were told we achieve for ourselves

I too am   framed by the stories I was raised on

alive in this  country even as  childbirth

is now an  uninsurable condition.

But still how lucky  I am to have two daughters

born in another time,

 and a mother, who did not live to see this

world in such shambles.

 

And perhaps it will all be worth something much more

than this day of feeling forgotten,  someday

this future that my daughters are preparing for us

as they work so hard to learn the language of repair.