Brian Clements
A poem about
mothers might contain
a list of battles,
homes, and film
worlds where mothers
appear, might comprise
all instances of mothers
of pearl, of invention,
of babies and all
wars, might list
their unacknowledged
legislation of high
school drama and grade-
A unpasteurized mother’s
milk, and surely
would itemize the value
of story time, of time
for homework, time to come
home. But the poem must
not leave out one hard
fact: mothers
lose their children;
whether to college
or work, whether to illness
or a bullet through the living
room window, whether
to drug or drink or love,
Mother will sit
some day at the kitchen
table, or in a bar,
or on a bench
in the park thinking of
how a small hand fit
inside the palm
of her own hand
and how perfect it
looked there, while
overhead the twilight
swarms with satellites.
Brian Clements is author or editor of multiple poetry collections and co-editor of the anthologies An Introduction to the Prose Poem (Firewheel Editions) and Bullets into Bells: Poets & Citizens Respond to Gun Violence (Beacon Press). He teaches at Western Connecticut State University.