"We are all our own mothers," by Shin Yu Pai

I was not born

with the mothering

bone, so it’s not

the young woman

my own age

on the 48 bus

hoisting her off-

spring aloft

who trains my attention,

or catches my heart

but the face of the ruined

man in a wheelchair

strapped down to the coach,

eyes gone wide watching

his jaw grown slack until

drool leaks out the corners

of the mouth he cannot wipe himself

calling out in a language which none

of us will respond to but

which we all apprehend

Shin Yu Pai, who grew up in Southern California, is a poet, photographer, oral historian, and editor. The author of seven collections of poetry, she has served as a poet-in-residence for the Seattle Art Museum and produced literary programming for the Crow Collection of Asian Art, the Women’s Museum of Dallas, and the Rubin Museum of Art. A former assistant curator for the Wittliff Collections, she is currently associate director of the Hendrix-Murphy Foundation for Language and Literature at Hendrix College. “we are all our own mothers” is from her recent collection, Adamantine, published by White Pine Press, and is reprinted by permission. Her website is shinyupai.com. The author’s photo is by Daniel Carrillo.