“Our baby is broken” my mother said
Very sympathetically, lovingly
Very heartfelt as she ran
Her fingers over my cast
And I was caught off guard
At the shock and relief that swept in
As I realized that she lives in a country
So foreign to me, this country
where it’s not common knowledge
That I’ve been broken
In every since of that word
For as long as I can remember
And we need that don’t we?
We need to be able to send postcards
To these ones who live
In oblivion’s mysterious countryside
Postcards with nice pictures
Where we say only the best
What we want to be,
How we know they’d want us to be
And smile as we think of
Its receiver reading it over
Tracing our scrawled words
With their fingers as if in doing so
They’re touching our very skin
Believing every word
Because they must, they have to
For their very peace of mind, their survival
And I wouldn’t move my mother
wouldn’t dare suggest she journey
To my impoverished alley way
Wrought with the land mines of heartache
Where I’ve taken refuge
No, no I need her to live there
On that quilted landscape illuminated by the sun
Knowing she struggled long before I knew her
Just to feel its grasses beneath her toes
It brings me such joy to think of her there
Leaving her there is the greatest act of love
I’ll ever give to anyone
And It didn’t cost much, no not really
Only myself…
Contraposition 