Good Mother Manifesto

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Midway Journal, April 15, 2024

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.