I Am Your Mother (There Is No Mistake) By Gillian Thomas

I Am Your Mother (There Is No Mistake)

Labor split me open, like an earthquake
Gone, my old landscape and cave where I danced
I am your Mother, there is no mistake.

With a backwards glance I reach down to take
your hand. Strobe lights, clubs; on thin ice I’d prance
Fault lines split open; ground boiling & baked

A dog-eared page from a past bad day; cake
smeared all over the place. What is the chance
I am your Mother? There is no mistake.

Words from my razor-tongue—sinner, and flake.
Forgive this damage I’ll do, in advance
Splitting open, like the loudest earthquake

Raging; what’s before me stands still and takes.
Look at your face—in my own eyes I glance:
I am your Mother. There is no mistake.

My past, a legacy you won’t soon shake
But this bond—fiercer, than any romance
Love has split me open, like an earthquake
I am your Mother. There is no mistake.

Gillian Thomas is a writer and poet, and mother to her 9-year old son. A graduate of New York City’s Hunter College, Thomas received her bachelor’s degree in English and theater before first being published in the journal The Iconoclast. She has spent years living in both NYC and the DC suburbs, where she currently resides. Thomas’ work has also been featured, or is forthcoming in, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Pembroke Magazine, Gargoyle, Spry, JMWW journal, Ligeia Magazine, Topical, and more.