mothers love

seed to flower,
flower to seed

memory is like water

i remember her hands moving like white doves
brushing and braiding my long brown hair
it was golden then, touched by the sun
it is almost black now

every day i look more like my mother
every day i wake up and look in the mirror and see her lines tracing my face

seed to flower,
flower to seed
like rabia said,
i was born when all i once feared i could love

seed to flower,
flower to petal,
petal to earth,
earth to cloud,
cloud to sea,
sea to seed

i count my fingers and toes
i am more or less the sum of my parents bodies

memory is like water
i watch the sun reflecting on the face of the ocean
a face made of rippling skin
light scattered like shards of stained glass
like moving windows

that reveal nothing of the bottomless insides