Sons

She had four sons
before she turned
twenty-six,

the first created
when she was
sixteen and tired

of scrubbing floors
each Saturday and
church bowling each Saturday
night.

And all during school week, tired.
Tired of hem-lines
and neck-lines and sleeve lines.
And six-inch rules in the chapel pews.

So she found her own
six-inch escape
that only trapped her
for life,

swelled her to
nine months and
weighed her with
a yoke of forever.

Married in a foreign
church of baptist
bastards who said,

“a sixteen year old
pregnant girl is too wicked
to wed in a white dress.”

She divorced later, after thinking
six years’ penance was sufficient
for her sin,
but they didn’t think so.

With her finger free,
she flew away
but was trapped again
this time with a rusty lock of “true love”,
or so she thought.

Created boy number two
when she turned
twenty-three.

This one a son
without marriage,
no unwhite wardrobe,
no baptists, but still
one tiny bastard.

And now she is twenty-six,
a mother of two sons

but also

in her dreams a mother
of two more
that were created
differently.

Two dream boys with one dream daddy and—

and those two dream sons
who visit in her sleep
swell her heavier than
any real one could,

swell her heart,
swell her eyes,
swell her shut.

Today, she is twenty-six,
sinking
with the weight of four
and the yoke
of forever.