Pieta

I am the color of white sand at midnight,
and Jameson slides through my veins like impossible ice
peremptorily frozen in its own wake of impracticality
– inside me
devoid of warmth, but full of the strongest molecules of misery
my blood is incapable of covalence
repelling all directional attraction

I am the hooded mother of abandonment, under wraps
my monument of loss is the memory trailing
in a trance of moments replayed, day after day
until one day
they will look and determine I am
– like Mars
now desolate and shrunken, reflected in red
the god of war awakening as I step lightly past the flippancy
of those who pity me
I know they breathe stilted sighs of relief as I do
crossing themselves over and over
while the unthinkable grips them for a nanosecond
before being shut down
by ecstasy disguised in forged empathy

I am the serenity of knowing, an infant forever in my arms
absent any grief,
in the instant before pain transforms into life
and follows relentlessly, undeservedly
– thereafter
the goddess of war ever alit in elusive calm
when it comes, we know it is divine

One day I will ask them
Do you think you are any better
because your children are still alive?
distracted by the noisy complacency of your life
and masquerading as mothers of the year
crowding playgrounds with your Maclarens showered in mealy Cheerios,
raisins intently pinched
– triumphantly
I have been given the answers you will never have
I am the mother of all you will never know

and you are no better than me.