Dew Drops

My mother loved me hard enough to break my heart forever,
to split it wide so that cedar and ironwood trees would root where the fault lines stood
she knew, even as I grew inside her, that I was her wish come true
her little girl

She named me after a soft morning shower, in the hopes that I would bring her peace
Instead, she has often been left to wonder where on earth I came from
and forced to be the impatient steward of my weird
hours spent searching for perfect baby girl dresses
that I eschewed for ripped t-shirts and bare feet

She used to pull me under the covers on Sunday mornings and wrap me up in her sheets
showing me, even then, that I am worth holding on to
Her love is like sunlight,
turning the watermark of expulsion and diaspora into something
unbent, beguiling yet somehow honest
shimmering in cloudy water,
the last gleaming thing in this gutted, splintered earth