Our Mother’s Children
I have forgotten their names,
she is muttering, her arms clasped
‘round her knees as she rocks herself
back and forth, and I must
lean in, strain to hear her
over the planes and the shouting
and the crumbling,
but I am grateful to pretend
this is more important, that her words
carry more weight than those bombs do –
whose names? I ask,
and her eyes clutch mine,
full of tears.
My children’s names, she says,
but she has no children.
likely neither of us
will ever have children,
likely neither of us
have more than a month, a week,
an hour of our own,
but now I too am crying,
rocking myself in empty arms like a babe:
we have all lost
we have all forgotten
the names of our children,
of our mother’s children
we heap graves upon them
we cannot mark.
