Eve Composes a Letter to Her Mother
I’ve guessed about the color of your eyes,
and if my slender face is shaped like yours.
I seldom think about you anymore
now that the boys are taking all my time.
But still, sometimes I wish your voice would twine
into my own; I’d hear some echo or
a resonance of things you’d said before.
No thread. The only voice I hear is mine.
Perhaps I’m lucky not to have the ink
of your blood spill through me, I tend to write
my own mistakes, no other hand to blame.
But late at night, the boys asleep, I think
about the silent pages of your life
and how I wear that emptiness like chains.