I’m tired of people calling me mother, putting magic where it doesn’t belong. No holiness, no curses of Eve or Mama Killa; My hips don’t dance the language of maternity.
Can’t they see, I’m not the kind of woman that grew from a rib bone? Not that any woman really is (but some pretend). I’m trying to find a world in the blue fuzzy lint of my pants’ pockets and the hollowing wrinkles of my knuckles. The child ghosts will go unnamed.
Mom doesn’t believe me, like a love for adding chalky numbers on blackboards equals the word woman, and so I can’t claim the word as my own without drawing new pictures in the dirt with my fingernails. I’d rather watch the Redwoods release hundred-year-long sighs than plant a tree of my own.
I tried gluing my bare feet to a pair of palms. but the rain came and washed away the sap. I tried again and the river came and carried me on her back. To be a river is to be a woman but also to be in motion only stopped by temporary eddies or dams-- And dams scream the word patriarch. I can’t think of anything more like a man.
So, if I’m a river, I’m a woman. I don’t need to pool around the needs of hungry humans Or to turn around to look at my tributaries. Or even stop at my own delta. I can try on the skin of salt water or Cumulus clouds, Without having to sink my toes into sand Or grow heavy with the weight of anything But my own raindrops.
I don’t mean to be irreverent but motherhood doesn’t really fit In the palm of my hand. And my lifeline weaves long and unbroken Across my palm, But no one’s ever stretches long enough To discover what it means to be human Before saying goodbye to humanness, So why go about damning another soul To lifelong confusion?
It feels like eating a mouthful of roses Or staying in bed until three. To be needed gives purpose. To be needed gives identity. To be needed ensures your footprints Remain cemented in stone Long after headstones weather And grow moss.
In the interest of realism My eyes close around time pebbles, Smooth beads of yesterday’s earth, And resolve to redefine woman Without the word ovary or man Or pink wrinkled feet.
*Neith was an Egyptian goddess of war, often cited as an androgynous being, capable of giving birth without a partner or sexual imagery.