Words spill out of my mothers mouth Like a gumball machine Some are soft as cotton Others are as hard and heavy as lead It is all she feeds me And it is all I swallow Year after year She gets lighter And I get taller I flew across the world Tasted all different flavors And when I met strangers They’d ask me “What’s that sound” A jingle of my belly A rattle when I laugh A reminder of my home made meals And when I see my mother again She opens her mouth Out falls a small shiny

Chanel No.5. Waxy lipstick. The clip clop of leather heels. Smell of my mother lingers since I was a little girl As an adult, I know my mother's scent A soft musk That I only get When I go in for a hug deep sighs and closed eyes a shot of hydration in the desert of passing time But as a mother, I see my daughter this radiant ridiculous joy and wonder Could she have been my mother in the faraway countryside smelling of manure mud, long blades of grass a hard days fragrance of

A mother’s love is like the sea. Yet even the sea can be rough Her waves do not splash evenly. Sometimes, they pull away, making you wade...