MommaMendUs

We girls fly home
to our mommas again
for braided hair
and brown sugar laced
baked bean kisses…and hugs
hugs for time

Time to remember
that we are priceless princesses
not $5.95 8×10 glossies
spread open at the crease
laying still for all
waiting for anything
but our pages to be turned over
Our glossy now dull
Our edges shorn and tattered
by feigning eyes and hands
groping…needing

Needing
Her fingers now
in my hair
Now kneading close
to the scalp

My trembling
fingers fall
too close to the edge
of a scar-flecked heart

Oh, I am a leper!
fingers Interlacing themselves with wounds,
wounds encrusting a reservoir
of stagnant pains
slowly healing…

We girls fly home!
on a 747 impulse to know
Where? It was we were supposed
to be? Going.

Images of your strength, momma,
come speeding at the wing
a little compass compassion
to pass on