Pinworms

At a party, my friend says
having a kid let her re-parent herself.
She’s a little high when she says it.
We laugh, then don’t.

When I was little,
it sometimes felt like my mom
thought I should prove that 
I deserved to happy.

I learned not to ask.
I learned to watch her face,
to get there first.
If I was mean,
it was because I had to be.

Before me, she was a child
under a wooden house,
skipping school,
lying flat in the dark
so no one would find her.

When she got hungry,
she ate what was there.
Hands full of dirt pressed into an eager mouth.

I think about that

what it teaches you.

& if motherhood is a second chance, I wonder if being a mom would let me re-parent my mom. I try to picture her differently now.

Under her grandmother’s house,
the dirt is damp and close.
She looks at me
like I already know the rules & holds something out.

I take it.

It’s soft in my mouth,
wet & grainy.

No one comes.

No one calls us back.

After a while,
I take her hand.

She doesn’t have to earn it.
She doesn’t have to be good.

I stay either way.