Unblemished Love

 

The comfort of a mother

Has all measure

When guts have splattered

The pale, white wall

And you find that you feed

On Seeds

Of abstract gloom.

Your life’s straddled on the death horse

And you speed on a night’s dark mare

But she’s still there

Willowing in the wind

As her skirt quilts your nakedness.

She’s gone along

And you needn’t reel the words.

She has saqaciousness to thread

And put you back together

With embroidered preciseness.

The comfort of a mother

Is the smile, the touch

The gathering of fallen leaves.

 

–Caroline Cammack

from “The Hot House Lily” published 1976