after Kwoya Fagin Maples
 
I don’t remember who but my mother was not
the voice instructing Sprinkle sugar
to proof the yeast the sweet assistance
 
of Ms. Tea’s hand as my child-own
found piano keys slow clinking jewels
 
and Mrs. Kings who carried me and my sister’s harmony
on the shoulders of church hymns
 
down to the ladies of the library basement knitting
and picking up dropped stitches
like the outstretched loop
 
of a tired child’s arms, heavy eyes
 
like slow wings I join this invisible brigade
of childless and caring watch the dough rise
 
then harden into the final shoe size of the very laces
I once tied mothered without the mothering
 
scars, no stretchmarks to prove it and yet I am just as undone
as any hand suddenly dropped
 
at the crosswalk, we all let go –  I can’t
 
stop watching an old recording
of Rian and Jonah:
they are eating bread
and laughing I wonder if they remember how to knead
the way I taught them
palm-pushed until resistance,
try hard, I will not forgo
their lisp and grin try easy
and years later, I am their stranger.
One day I will
or won’t hold a child
of my own
and those names I have forgotten will be unearthed
in these lessons, the scarves
I wrap around chapped and ruddy chins.