Good

just like a baby
my baby curls in to cuddle
her small body
still fits into my lap

i can’t replace the hours we’ve lost
the years we’ve lost
or fill the ache in my heart
for the good i’m trying to do
that doesn’t do me any good

but when her tears creep down?
when she won’t go for a night of fun
because she’s missed me too much,
when the weeks have flooded by
in a pile of work
that i’m so fucking good at
when i can’t just be her mother?

it is too much
and i am five again
just like her
searching for my mother’s arms
to comfort the sadness
that rests so heavily on my soul

Trapped

i didn’t even see you today.
i was trapped between
piles of papers,
a knife-twisting conversation,
snoozing detention students,
and all the hours
lost to standardized tests

i came to tuck you in–
you were already asleep.
you were silent during dinner
because all we could do was complain,
the stresses of our jobs
taking over our words

is this my life,
my momentary life?
i want to hang up the phone
and pull you close to me,
to make you small again
for all those years
i already lost when you were small

but i can’t.
i am trapped between
a pile of papers,
a knife-twisting conversation,
and the person
i said i would never be.

The Big Day

i don’t want to think
of your new pink backpack,
your hand-me-down uniform,
or your first steps into kindergarten.

wasn’t it just yesterday
that we swung you in the car seat
into the hospital elevator,
calling you Mythili by mistake?

how can we move from birthday
to first day of school in one week?
it’s too much for this old mom,
this worked-through-baby-years mom.

but it will have to be.
tomorrow’s the big day,
the beginning of the endless
letting goes that you and i must face.

Cast Away

my moon was awake
full and bright
casting my stress
with hands of night

the breeze came out
shunning the heat
on the swing i sat
dangling my feet

my thoughts swirled round
a storm in my head
while my pup rested gently
under covers in bed

if only the screen
could wash away fears
make the work worthwhile
and cast away tears

Definition

it could be the Spanish-English mix
from the nanny’s mouth as we sat in the zoo,
my thoughts of the last day of summer
slipping from my hands
quicker than the tears
my baby cried to sleep with,
or the anger inside
that someone would pay another
for everything i love the most.

it could be the defriending,
his cold absence of words in my presence,
or her emphatic insistence
that eight months is enough
time with her baby
when a thousand years
would not satiate me.

it could be the story i love
coming to a bittersweet end,
or the small voices
absent from my home
on the one day when
i need them most.

but i will never be quite able
to define what haunts me.

Me

i don’t want to be here.
i’m good at this.
i’ve read enough
to share stories and articles
with my co-teachers,
have taught enough
to take over their lessons on the fly,
remember her words enough
to stand at the front and teach
while simultaneously seeing students
for who they really are,
can move through classrooms
and schedules with
hauntingly smooth ease,
can grade a stack of 150
short constructed responses
before the state test is over
and still take the time
to cry a little when i see
how poor a student’s score will be

but i cannot
i cannot
take the tears out of my four-year-old’s eyes
after the rushed-morning goodbye,
the words i cannot take back,
the days
the months
the years
i cannot take back,
the me
(the mommy me)
who i fear will never be as good
as the me
who walks down these hallways.

Cheeks

just as my students pull
like a dead weight
at the back of my brain
she looks up
her four-year-old cheeks
as smooth as innocence
and whispers,
“Mama, I wish
you didn’t have to work.”

i can’t hold them back
but she studies my family tree necklace
as the salt drips down
my thirty-two-year-old cheeks
as rough as pain
and whispers,
“I love you so much, Mama.”

and it is about all i can do
it is about all i can do
it is about all i can do
holding her
without words
her cheek against my cheek
is about all i can do.

Internal Song

i’m the one who can’t sit still
whose lazy days are always filled
with activities to keep at bay
every moment of every day

why do i work so hard, so long?
to answer my internal song
my mother’s steadfastness asks
only that i complete my tasks.

for all my life i’ll be her child
walking door to door, mile to mile
i’m the one who can’t sit still
without busy-ness, my life’s not filled.

All I Have Lost

amidst the chaos
of this day
(or any other)
i have missed a milestone
that even with pictures
i will never
be able to replicate

it is not the first
(nor the last).
it tears at
my heartstrings,
a reminder of
all i have lost
with everything
i have won.

i wait for the day
when what i’ve won
will fill the void
(the interminable
guilt-ridden void)
that encompasses
all i have lost.

My Stunning Flowers

I carry inside myself the desire to be better,
to always sit with you and help you find every
place where your puzzle pieces go,
to tell you, yes, forty minus three is thirty-seven,
to play family while I hold the piggy and you hold the koala

and not to wash these dishes
not to gather my breakfast ingredients
or set up my morning coffee,
not to look at the computer for just one moment

I think how you will be as women
falling in love
going off to college
calling to tell me about your first real jobs
and I both despise and relish these thoughts

I look forward to that time, to sharing
my life with you in a different way,
to see how you’ve blossomed
from the beauty of your youth into the
three unique flowers that I know you will become.

but now I struggle with my evenings,
my tense moments of tomorrow’s prep work,
my need to have a break when you are sleeping
in the brief time between your bedtime and mine

and I know that what I sacrifice is my vision of your future
and the interminable guilt that will mingle
with the sadness you will carry in your hearts,
the longing all of us will have for these moments,
these precious moments without which
you will never be the stunning flowers I have imagined.