Gilded with clay, a wounded mother may not heal

Any but the most superficial afflictions!

And those do not beggar treatment.

But cover her bronzed pretenses with

The rime of a mind long from love,

To begin and only begin.

A seashell surface of glossy reflections

Serves as better theatre for a desperate outreach,

The essential salts of the mother's memory-pain

Of years gone by.

Make her, make them know a panoply

Of changed wishes whispered fervently

Under honey-drenched moonscape.

No suit of ebony or sterling may serve

They who feel with their lives.

Familiarity begets a cycle of forgetfulness

That is necessary and welcomed;

She wants to know it but needs you,

Or they,

Or I.

And flourishing your work, O sycophant

Of the Ego!

You or even myself hold high a talisman

Of careful forging, and she is rendered immobile.

The two become one in lieu of mercy

And the work is undone,

For she is gone and taken our appointed time

With her.