August 2020
Marilyn Taylor
mlt@mltpoet.com
Author's Note: This poem was written as a belated double tribute—primarily to my mother, Alice Lighter, who died on September 9, 1974, and also to my son, Reed Taylor, who was born shortly thereafter. He continues to further her exceptional legacy with grace, intelligence, and compassion, even after all these decades.

From a Dark Place

Who are you, child, still floating
in my daughter’s womb?  I didn’t know you
in my time, yet you look like me—
there is a flare to the nostril and a tinge
to the hair that is ours.
 
You eyes are sealed like mine,
but your mouth opens and closes
with incipient messages—
and if I should whisper back
you would listen, spinning with delight.
 
Unfold your fingers, if you can—
they are waiting to grow eloquent
and strong.  They will move under mine
the first time you touch the watered silk
of an iris, or your mother’s face.
 
Your bed narrows, your bones
are bonding as mine fall
to powder.  Soon we will glide away
from one another—you won’t remember
passing me in the dissolving dark.
 
But you have my gifts:
the chromata of our past, strung jewels
I harbored for you all my life.
Without their weight, I vanish
just as you, moon-drenched, appear.
©2020 Marilyn Taylor
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