by Robin Byrd

we are our mothers

embodied and portioned

lost and aware

wisps of memory

captives           to genographic fates

the black potted bread still soaking in butter on the stove’s eye

sizzling hot and blisteringly dangerous

              “misery lives in the bones”

blood bleeds on dresses repurposed each generation for war

braided and rolled coifs frame faces too old to love hard again

ruint too young to know full abandon

              “survival is a verb, is an action”

deep as conversation between matrilineal and patrilineal Xs

“we was runnin’  /

/ we was walkin’

  we was birthin’ babies at a young age

/ an’ at a old age

we was locked up

 /   inside ourselves

an’ in asylums /

for this can be the work of men

but he loved me  /

/ he loved me

til’ his dyin’ day  /

/ til’ my dyin’ day

we was young  /

/ then we was old

then we was old /

i survived the asylum /

/ i did not survive my body reekin’ of alcohol

/ nor could i forget the huntin’ days

/ of wild meat simmerin’ or the smell

of afterbirth” /

give me cabbage and potatoes with the “e”

give me corned beef or meatloaf with gravy

and some of that bread

press my hair straight

              don’t burn my ears or my kitchen

let me speak of shadows in dark rooms

and how much blood can be scrubbed from the soul or barren-ed womb

years of flesh falling like crabapples on the medicinal lawn so pretty you forget the apples need washing

unbefitting – this landscape

a lovely blanket to hide the oath breakers lair

life slips

expels itself

for grief is a murderer cloaked in silence

forgive me if i remember Dothan’s road as a desert route to hades

“we went north…east  /

/ we went north…west

then we backtracked south…west /

we met in the middle in the southernmost northern city

we met in the middle  /

/ we met in the middle

your son/my daughter   /

/ your daughter/my son

we met in the middle

left nothing to chance”

the bones ache of revisiting crime scenes

sometimes i want to run when i need to walk

other times i just want to straddle this fence

teetering

invisible is not the end of a thing     

written off is not the same as a black woman weathering

misery lives

in the bones

i am my mother

i am all my mothers

in ways too familiar to ignore

still scratching at scabs

still burying the dead

still weathering the pretty lawns

7/16/26