Becca Rose Hall
Horizontal Mother
mother of the darkened room
mother of daytime sleeping
voice high with pain
mother as child
child as
mother of the vague love
the sweet sweet nothings
heavy-armed mother
mother of ellipses
mother of my daughter
mother of my mother
mother of me
oh mother of god
have I become this mother
mother of the half-thought
mother of the blank stare
pale mother soft mother
daytime pajama mother
sick mother ill mother
addict mother attic mother
fog mother dream mother
mother-upon-mother mother
child in the doorway
makes a shadow in the sudden light
the shadow leans across the room
slips in the mother’s bed
a little darkness inside the mother darkness
mmm says the mother
stirs but does not lift her head
Return to Motherhood’s Duality Folio
Becca Rose Hall is a Jack Straw Writers Fellow, Washington Artists Trust GAP Grant recipient, and Writers Lighthouse Emerging Fiction Fellow. Her work has appeared recently in Orion, Pacifica Literary Review, Mutha, Third Coast, and The North American Review. She is the director of Frog Hollow School, a children’s writing program in Seattle. She writes as a mother and a daughter.