Caridad Moro-Gronlier
For My 21-Year-Old Son, Who Calls Me on The Day Roe V. Wade is Overturned
It’s not the ding of a text that comes in
but the trill of his ringtone, Landslide,
favorite song I refashioned into a lullaby,
every note a link on the chain of nights
that were ours alone, the childhood score
I sang on repeat that he no longer asks for.
I don’t hesitate to answer,
though we’ve been locked in battle
over boundaries and definitions,
a ping-pong match of contranyms—
how fast means firmly affixed,
not just swift flight;
how buckle means fasten,
as well as collapse;
how bound means motionless,
but also to propel forward.
His way. My way. The way
I’m not ready to part ways,
yet, on this dirge of a day,
the taut rope between us slackens
and he calls to ask if I’m okay.
I hear in his voice he knows
I’m not, my rage fueled
by an arsenal of sorrow.
Momma, he says,
I’m so sorry.
Momma, an old word
for a younger version
of each of us,
and there is still enough
of them in us to survive
the inevitable cleave—
we will hold together,
even after we split apart.
Caridad Moro-Gronlier is the author of Tortillera (TRP 2021), Visionware, (FLP 2009) and the recipient of the 2023 Julia Peterkin Literary Award. She is the editor of Grabbed: Poets and Writers Respond to Sexual Assault, Empowerment and Healing (Beacon Press, 2020) and associate editor for SWWIM Every Day. Recent publications include Essential Queer Voices of U.S. Poetry, The Power of the Feminine I, Under a Warm Green Linden, The Blue Mountain Review and others.