When they say to stay gold

Is it for bright days to sit between your ears?

All the cotton clouds, two or three, right there?

Or is it to find strength for your arms to pull you over the mossed edge?

 

Mama cried after every light accomplishment

Whether it be reinstated love or you set a day aside for treks and hikes

Or graduated from University

 

You seen Mama cry when the fridge was filled with food bought with Monopoly money

When the lights flickered because employers think the lack of a degree is the funniest

And her apartment smelled like cigarette smoke, though she moved in just three weeks ago

She’s set to leave because the landlord demands the rent like roads in Maine demand a freeze

But it ain’t always winter where the pavement meets the Falls in Grafton

Despite the snowfall in September ten minutes before the border of New Hampshire

Could draw a Moose in and trap it

 

Where her son saw glass walls and marble floors make up the space in his mind

Mama saw land, companionship while he wasn’t around

A pretty little girl would bring her rabbits while her not-blood brother would throw his teeth

To hook and stab at it

 

There was land behind her eyes, mountains crowning hills and rivers and streams

And maybe the sky is purple in her dreams and at least she still has the energy to see it

Because the universe won’t align in such a way

It’ll never be violet or perfect, there’s no rhyme or reason meaning its violently churning

While she sees pigs along side her own beagles her son finds peace most prominent in building cathedrals

He says they are for him to commemorate the day that he dies

But he sees the clock dissolving on his wrist each morning he showers

So its more to make his Mama cry