Today's poem is by Rasma Haidri

Seen
       

Detroit, Michigan, 1956,
a boy stood at twilight
in the empty playground,
back to the creaking swings,
knocking his head
against a galvanized post.

No one took him in her arms,
not his mother, if he had one,
not my mother, at her window,
not me, not yet born.

My mother told this fragment of story,
a scene replaying,
the sky always gray, cold
as the pole he tried for solace.

I begin to understand the reach
through flesh, bone, steel
to feel the pain
that feels like being seen.

You, age five,
in cotton sheet and foil halo,
waited in vain
to be seen by your mother
who never came.

You, age three,
knocked down (forehead split
on stone) by your mother
demonstrating: That's how it feels,
after you accidentally
knocked over your sister.

You, age thirty-three,
on the lam from psych ward A,
nabbed by police,
your father flew in, There there.
Chin up. It'll all be the same
in a hundred years.

Your mother didn't come,
or send a card,
but a year or ten later,
still ignoring your scars,
she said what you needed then
was to come to her arms.

I praise the science teacher
who asked, "Do you know you have a constellation
on your cheek?"

At thirteen,
you felt seen among stars.

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Copyright © 2024 Rasma Haidri All rights reserved
from Blue Like Apples
Rebel Satori Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission