Mother to Daughter
I spoke of things you should not know
Too heavy for a child to hold
Shaped like a question mark out of my womb
You woke and wailed in my arms
We shared a birthmark
Our necks cardinal wings pledged in blood
My forever emptiness rose
need gnawed on your bones
I spoke of things you should not know
Too heavy for a child to hold
You spat it out
in far-away places
Away from the motherlode
Came home your own woman
Falling in Time
Milkweed pods open. A puff spreads
silk threads into the wind. Seeds cling
not sure when or where to let go.
The doctor has a plan: remove the womb,
ovaries and cervix. He can take nothing
from me that I could make use of.
Decades have passed
Since my daughter climbed my body
to rest her head on my chest.
Time fell, the sun slowed, covered my body
in dark spots, lined my skin like desert sand.
How dry I have become.
The time for milkweed is over.
Does the wind or for that matter God,
plan where seeds fall and seasons end?
Ox and the Buddha
Belly to belly I laid with you, rested in your Buddha black eyes
and lifeless body. I brought a lotus blossom, sweets for your
lips reddened with cinnamon, cayenne and saffron. Knelt
kissed your feet. You did not wake for me. I had traveled
in an ox-drawn cart, heard the suck of the ox’s hooves
laboring through the muddy ruts, yoke scrapping its
shoulders raw. Each jolt of the cart brought us close
to you. You had gone. Seven screeching monkeys
led me to darkness beneath the Dambulla Cave
Temple where the columns that propped you
up dripped tears for the forsaken. A path
lined with tiny flames like fireflies
led me home.
Christine Penney lives in New York City. She spent many years acting in the Bay Area and in too many black boxes in Manhattan. She co-wrote and performed a one-woman show on Kaethe Kollwitz, an artist/activist whose life spanned World War I and World War II.
When she retired she dove into writing fiction and poetry. She has published her poems with Porter Gulch Review, Hole in the Head and Amethyst Review. Out now is four of her haikus in an anthology published with Moonstone Arts.
The Marbled Sigh 