Birthday Nostalgia is Never Very Constructive

physical endurance is a matter of genes,
of sweat, of blood,
of you-can-do-its and just-a-little-mores.

but the pores of my skin
were open just a little too wide
and went a little too deep,
and the collection of saline that
leaped from your face
was enough to turn my cells
to blood and calcium to bone.

where are you now
in this gargantuan speck we
incredulously call home?
do you inhale through small nostrils
the aroma of earth and humanity
the way i have been known to do?
do you gaze at distant fires
and wonder at the ancestors of us all?

i will slip my toes into that brackish deep
and let the tumultuous wind carry these thoughts to you,
oh, giver of life and enigma of memory:
whether i am to ever know the outlines of your face (i imagine it like mine),
or am meant to forever be satisfied to go without,
love has never known a restriction,
from the moment of your sacrifice
to the very breath i now take,
and will never know one in my life

all because of you,
the mother who
had no choice
but to give me
away.