When you are young,
younger than I am now,
young enough that you look at the world
through lenses that have not lost
their rose tint
you do not put the pieces of the puzzle together.
Whispers are just whispers
Daddy is just Daddy
Mommy, though, is starting to become Mom, then will become
Mother,
she will dissolve into Judith
and eventually when you are older
you wont even speak her name.

When you are young though, you do not know
that the hand that she raises should stay by her side,
that the book that she preaches can have other meanings.

She will change in your eyes from satin, to velvet,
to velveteen, to burlap, to sawdust.
From year to year she will become less and less valuable,
less and less wanted
yet more and more substantial
till she becomes a monument to all the things from your childhood
that you did not understand.

12/05/2008

Posted on 12/06/2008
Copyright © 2025 Vikki Owens