From the Marsh

Your mother raised herself from the marsh,

those limbs, like bones bound together,

by grass, by hair,

skin packed on by a fistful of mud,

no camcorder proof of that first step, instead,

tree branch leg, stone foot, her green-corn hair.

Your mother raised herself from the alleyway of the laundromat,

sorting thoughts like clothes,

the dark, the light, the burnt and bleached clean,

amongst the televisions with their soap operas,

the vending machines,

a matted quilt of drier sheets, of lint.

Your mother raised herself from the bathroom with its cracked mirror,

from the marsh,

the laundromat,

the grass,

the soap,

the mud.

Your mother raised herself from the marsh, but she raised you

from where the sidewalk meets the curb.