Good mothers wear tobacco pouches
filled with lost teeth, divide
their bodies into muffin tins, serve
themselves for breakfast. Good
mothers even out wobbly table legs
with their dream journals and pinky skin.
They make afternoon tea
with the children’s bathwater. Good mothers say
out loud, This is delicious. Good mothers stuff
magpie feathers in their ears, stuff magpie feathers
in their children’s ears. Good mothers build cages
out of antelope ribs. Good mothers live
in these cages. Good mothers know birds
have something to say about weight
loss. Good mothers go to bed
starving. Good mothers know they are free
to walk on lake bottoms and not
drown, free to make a meal of paint chips,
free to pull their hangnails off
up to the elbow. Good mothers give away everything
except lightning: cracking above
their clouds, cracking in their valleys,
sometimes ripping up the land, other times
leaving no trace at all.