The Good Mother

Take me to the place where I am the mother I wish to be, I most want to be.

It is in this place that I build fires by moonlight like a woodsman
Read my babies poems by Lucille Clifton an hour after bedtime
Eat cookies with abandon
Brush my hair one hundred times
Boil water dancing to Cat Stevens
in the kitchen
Explain to my son what the word proud means

All this in one day

It is in this place I have the patience of a swan
I don't raise my voice once,
Only to howl at the moon
by my father's side, with a fat baby
wrapped in my favorite pink sweater.

When my friends call I have time to really listen
When family comes I have time to really talk

This mother can write,
She can dance.

She sometimes forgets,
But then always remembers.