For Mum

Pale feminist you.
Bliss in a vintage dress.
Under a potbellied sky.
With your rouge pots.
Your lipsticks that taste like cream.
Your comaed flowers.
They plant their halos.
You dig them up.
You plant them somewhere else.
Somewhere where there is sun.

She knows the world.
She knows it in the Biblical way.
English is not her first language.
She has two daughters.
Her son is the baby of the family.
The avocado tree is flowering.
It is being brought to life.
Resurrected somehow.
The pomegranate does not.
Something is in the way.

Nature’s bride.
With climate change comes an elegant mess.
Mum is nature’s bride.
Her hair is a halo. Tungsten.
I worship this angel.
All her trilogies. Her choir.
With her sibling rivalry.
She carried me in her womb for months.
She was there when I realised my dream.
My dream of becoming a writer.

She raised me lopsidedly.
I have forgiven her for that.
With a little bitter, a little sweet.
I admire people who live in the wilderness.
There is squalor out there. Cacti.
I worship the hills in her eyes.
The valley that covers her physically.
She experienced loss early in her life.
We never talk about it.
Our family is like that.