A poem a day for 2013 - day 59 - For my mother

We are the best work in progress
Our fingers ever moist 
Holding the pages 
Where we left off
To re create
To story again
A bond too important to vapor

Here we are
Two grown women
In the lesson of mother and daughter
In the learning of friend and sister

I honor you

I wish I had your smile
My lips never curled quite like yours
Your eyebrows and hair
But my cheekbones are like yours
My cheeks my nose

Was I your hardest paper to write
Your first draft
Did you outline me in your mind
In Roman numerals?
Alphabet?
Stars drawn in pencil?

I love you, you know
You do know, right?
I rush the words so fast
They fall from my chin so train
Like beads down my neck
With the string fresh cut

I am always afraid
Of losing you
Of not saying
Not hearing all the words

All of your stories
The ones tucked in your forgotten

I am afraid
And I am at peace
Isn't that silly?
To shake and be still in tandem

Thank you
For sketching me out of your womb
For giving me what you know

What do any of us know
About growing a life
About letting one go