Today's poem is by Amy Dryansky

(Eve) Talking to Herself (Mother's Day)
       

You start where you always start, with the body. You like
to get close, imagine body as landscape, yourself supine
among furred hills, muscular plains. Let's be more specific.
You're restless. Let's be direct. You're unreliable.
You shift. You're itching to get back to that dark, leafy spot
where you trampled the grass, culminated your heart out,
crossed innocence, that narrow divide. When it comes
to infidelity you're torn. You're tempted to define it
as being faithful to what you really are. Let's talk
about that, what you really are: turned earth, sticky pith,
bitter milk of dandelion stems. Admit it. In this creation
no matter what gets sowed you'll always be slut,
never gardener. Who wouldn't ache for something new?
You keep busy. You count all the beasts, catalogue
every flying, crawling, swimming, wriggling, curled-up,
unfurling you can find. You've got books, big ideas.
But you're forever cleaning up somebody else's feathers
and wax. Leaning on a broom, giving in to nostalgia
as robins burble their evening song, you watch a boy
aim for the net, over and over. You almost feel the ball
leave his hands, each near miss trailing a helix
of disappointment and aspiration. Awkwardness
punctuated by grace. A boy becoming what he is. Making
what he can make. Practicing. You made him that way.

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Copyright © 2023 Amy Dryansky All rights reserved
from Between Paradise & Earth: Eve Poems editors: Nomi Stone & Luke Hankins
Orison Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission