The Work of Mothers – Anna Laura Reeve

A mother has a soul.
A soul needs

to walk uninterrupted down the train
and through each car,

emerging alone at the balcony
of the last car, steel shrieking,

black night opening
suddenly like a blade

or black parachute, sucking loose hats, change,
dust, into it,

divulging nothing. A soul
has seasons.

It practices death and rebirth. Its hair
grows lush,

then sheds; its love fills, then empties;
it dies absolutely

to the ground, but a root persists; or,
even roots wither

in drought, but a seed-case
swells—

then shatters—
dropping one seed.

A door slides open. White bones
turn, lightened & expressionless,

to re-enter the last car.

Anna Laura Reeve is a poet living in East Tennessee with her husband, daughter, and heirloom vegetable & native plant gardens. She’s working on her first poetry collection. Previous work of hers has appeared or is…