August’s Children
sometime
within the window of two
and 4 a.m. mother awakes
kisses one, two, eight names of children
into her prayer beads, wakes me up
says,
the unseen is fierce,
desperate
says, they don’t know what’s
coming for them. A mother knows, tell them
to come home.
(a mother always knows)
somewhere
beyond the window of one
and three oceans, I awake, my throat
in a cough-syrup dryness, I write
one, two, eight names of children
whose hands are melting into wheels offering
this earth
the heaviness of their chest,
the soles of their feet,
their blood like a new beginning on pristine white
Schoolclothes,
I pray:
Mother
let the unseen come. Just because
the darkness doesn’t seem to end
doesn’t mean we aren’t getting closer
to the light everyday