Portrait of a mother in the garden, weeding

Rowan Tate

The sun is in my mouth, God ripens

in me. He says these are your hands

and too the Sonata in C-sharp minor, rocking the night

back and forth like a cradle, the kneading

of sweet-herb bread, the steam of soup, bathwater and

untangling necklaces, playing a laughing bagatelle, playing

the day to its end against a bird-freckled dusk.

Two of them in the garden like Adam and Eve,

an accident of joy but God knows how

my body still remembers the ripping.

How to endure it, the place in me that opens

like the glove pocket of a car, folding my flesh

into the shape of their needs. All the bodies my children could ever have

are in me now, pink nubs being sown like cushions

while my body splays, chewing their food, and they,

chewing on both breasts.