by Brooke Gebhardt
You’ve never seen the world
until you’ve seen your mother cry.
When pale white knuckles
grip the kitchen sink as she questions
whether to let you see.
When hazel mixes with crimson, staring
back at you, sparkling
with fresh tears.
When lips quiver and shoulders shake,
attacking the walls of your heart and stuffing
doubt through the cracks. It whispers:
How can the world be good if it
makes her weep like this?
Hazel turns to steel and a thin line replaces
her smile, the once perfectly put-together woman
looking suddenly and unsettlingly human.
Then the infuriating epiphany that life and
injustice go hand in hand consumes you as she
straightens her dark dress and wipes her face clean.
Her own mother looks on with shining eyes,
unshed tears revealing her sorrow to the world
in a way she never allowed when her children were young.
One of your aunts weeps, and the other holds
her hand for the first time in
twenty years.
And in this brief reunification, you see the world
crumble and take what it pleases. It looks back at you with pity
and hands you this one small victory to squeeze
in the palm of your hand.
Category: Featured, Poetry, SNHU Creative Writing, SNHU Student