Mother, may I

go to him,

my brother

slave to the needled beast

 

Mother, may I

love him

the way you never did

 

Mother, may I

rest his broken

heart at your feet

 

Mother may you

mend that heart,

shattered and addled,

for the weary lot of us

 

We are broken

all of us

we seek reasons

before purpose

 

But I know you –

a mother myself,

we do

what’s best for the children

 

We don the muddy

cloak of self-hatred

when they lose

 

We are

all of us

responsible

for each other

 

Mother, may I

remind you

a mother’s love can cure

a mother’s love can heal

a mother’s love is the most potent antidote

to the trauma of life

 

Mother, may I

know what prevents you

Mother may you

know forgiveness

Mother may you

know love

 

Mother, may I

cradle your

shattered heart,

mend it with

my own mother love

 

Mother

may I

 

 

 

A note about this piece: I feel compelled to explain that my family is, as I write, tangled in a challenge with no easy solutions surrounding our most beloved brother.  Blame flies wildly around the cell phone clouds that float over three time zones, but after the anger, after the finger pointing, we each have come to sadness and through that sadness to a new understanding of ourselves and one another, and perhaps, at long last, to a place of forgiveness for the human flaws that flummox us all.  This poem reflects the raw emotion I find myself drowning in as my family and I try to come to terms with a heart-wrenching situation we all saw coming but were, nevertheless, not at all prepared for.

 

Jessica Ciosek is a writer living in NYC with her family.  Her story, “Aunt Ruth’s Purse” exploring a different kind of family crisis/tragedy appears in the Mothers issue of Minerva Rising.