Half-drowned in fogs
I hear their call –
“Mama!” – the hoarse, insistent cry
– “Mama!” – beyond the bedroom wall.

Crawling the length
of wrinkled sheets
I sit, propped on an aching hand
and strain my ears to hear – just geese – 

arrowing northward
overhead.
Uncalled, I turn; work sleepily
back into warmth and the rumpled bed.

Yet after all –
why not? Does now
the world live motherless, unlike
its opening days? Then how

was she, bone-made,
first named
and – surely not with careless word –
mother of all that lives proclaimed?

October 31, 2020

Photo by Ian Cumming on Unsplash