Your Mothers - Kristy Hellum

[Lawrence Robinson]

Your Mothers 

Good people
Today 
Turn to your mother's mother's mother.
Tell her you are grateful for the way she tiiled the soul
of her people
for your planting.
For all the babies she gave away
To stay fiercely alive. 
For all the babies that screamed
At her body
Lost to a heaven she could not hear

For mothers imprisoned
By jail cell
By marriage
By bottle 
By church
Sweatshop mothers
Keep thinking mothers
And those lost to dark street poppy dreams. 
Hell on a pedestal
bruised cheek under pancake face
Good people let it be known-
We are all here
To love
Each one
Our mothers
All.

	- Kristy Hellum