My Mother

Still she is an other.
My fears make her
remote as a last ridge
 
rife with veins and caves
(the conceits of veins and caves),
slippery, scary to climb,
 
her summit crowned in cloud.
 
Witnessed from death’s distance,
her lovely skirt swaying,
she carries with her her frame,
 
but I lose her in my mystery.
 
Still she blooms somewhat,
as if stepping forward from her body
into the character I love
 
with all my failings.
I try not to falter further,
 
not to deny in her
her half-fathomed humanness
and make of her another relation —
mother, producer, a kind of partner —
 
I a male full of males,
of female born.
 
Mother, you of unswum pools,
your grotto so deep
I shy in the shallows,
 
I reach across to offer
you my myopic eye,
 
I lose my footing,
I breaststroke to you,
 
you a woman full of yourself,
 
swimming to an inseparation
until with your lost body
you might give me birth again.