Summer Poem #2: Mother Mother

Once you came to me as a test and told me I was pregnant 

But when I woke up you were just a liar 

The next night I dreamt my spite was a spark 

and fantasized how far my stomach could have been stretched 

and all the directions I could have been pulled but wasn’t 

Because I was able to outsmart the boys and the girls and myself long enough 

to outrun the clock 

In my dream you do not congratulate me 

When I wake, I read a memoir about grief 

and mothers and daughters and the way we can never really escape each other

In the last essay, the mother visits her daughter in her dream

When she enters she is half dog  

She whispers I am addicted to you 

I convince myself it is only you and me 

who can find each other in our sleep 

To be loved is to feel seen

Because I can see the sun even when it is down 

and you are the only person I see when it becomes dark

The next night, a girl at the bar tells me I am the most beautiful thing she has ever seen

I almost tell her I look just like you 

The next day, I see you on the floor of the hair salon outlined in my strands  

You call me afterwards and swear you just saw me crossing the street 

Sometimes you visit me as a fog

but when the fog is dense I have to swat and pry through you until I am met with empty air again 

and I wake wondering when we will grow out of this game 

When I was a kid I used to dream about a woman in my bedroom window 

who turns into a dog as she is chasing me and now I wonder if all along it was really you 

Now, I dream of being you when you were my age 

but in this lifetime you don’t have any kids and you are lost in a city 

Drunk and giggling and you aren’t thinking of me at all or all the things you could have been 

and when I wake I am giggling too 

Published in Sprung Formal, Issue 20, 2025