Sovereign's Day

Dedicated to all the mothers who find time for nurture and for worship.

They brought you fresh flowers,
stems crushed between their little palms,
and homemade cards splotched with glue
and crooked hearts.
You ate burnt toast with lukewarm coffee
because someone needed shoes,
then praise,
then reminding,
then a quick hug
before the day could more forward.

You accepted all that was offered:

The clumsy confessions,
thinly disguised as requests you supposedly made.
The relentless spotlight on your performance
as the glorious savior of all things needing mending.

You sighed when one crawled into your lap
and left a souvenir with jam-stained fingers.

You tied the laces.
You cut the fruit.
You spoke in soothing tones
that didn’t always match your emotions.

I helped where I was able.
But the burden has always been unfairly yours.

I saw—as I have always seen:

How many times love approached as appetite.
How often your name was called from the room you’d just left.
How much of yourself you gave away without keeping score.

It was late when quiet was allowed to roam free.
The flowers were leaning sideways now,
the cards propped up against the vase you procured yourself.
The children slept at last, their hearts beating slow and steady.

I closed the door behind me
and came to you with humble eyes,
ambition decanted away,
emptied out and waiting to be filled.

You sat on the bed
wearing your favorite nightgown,
and stared at me.
I saw the woman
who had been everyone’s harbor
remember she was also the sea.

“Come here,” you said.

And I did.

I took a knee and bent my head—
not because you were tired,
even though you were.
Not because you were fragile,
because you were not.

“Look at me.”

I obeyed and saw you
all supple skin and spread thighs,
free of translation into keeper, fixer,
comforter, mother.
The crown of flowers replaced
by a throne of desire.

Your thumb traced my lips.

“Tonight, you give.”

So I did.

With lips and fingers and tongue
I offered up my most attentive obedience,
lavishing the indulgence daytime had withheld.

Your hand grasped my hair,
dragging all of me
into that private queendom
where no taking was permitted
except by your decree,
where my own longing waited in the shadows
until it was worthy of being summoned.

By day, they loved you
for your shelter.

By night,
I loved you as the storm.

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Happy Mother’s Day to every woman who has ever mothered in any form—who has given of herself so that others might be nourished, comforted, and healed.

♥︎ May you find someone worthy of tending to your storm ♥︎

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