My daughter & me
When I am 91
Waking up in my bed on wide white sheets
Vanishing into the open question
At the end of my life
I am still a young woman
No baby suckles my breasts
Anymore
No tiny hand in mine
Brings me to the window
To hear the birds
Yet I am the same woman
Who wrote this poem
Long ago
From the foundering depths of
New motherhood
I am also the baby girl
At the beginning of my life
Held by my mother
To her breast
Giving me her milk
Yearning
For the work of her career
From the depths of motherhood to be
Doing important things
Her real life
This I absorbed this into my cells
Keeping me
For a long time
From the things I loved
Especially myself
As I nursed my baby this morning
On the wide white sheets
I prayed
For love to guide me
Thanking God for the grace
To leave aside my work
For a while
For the important things
My real life
Even as she sings the alphabet
In the next room
And stammers along the floor
To find me
My baby is the grown woman
Who will bring to me at 91
Her motherhood, her children
Her children's children
And I will remember myself
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