Pieta

Lying on my mother’s bed 
listening to tropical rain skitter 
across a mottled screen, 
I hold my daughter, sprawled in sleep,
head pressed to my heart. 
To the west 
across a shifting silver sheet of water 
the world falls endlessly away. 
The child’s leg twitches in a 
white ginger dream, 
my fingers round the curve of her 
almond head. 
According to some unspoken law of 
hearts, the women in this house return love
only in the measure it is given 
while you 
continents, centuries away 
hold your son like that 
your cheek gray and smooth as stone 
your eyes cracked as crystals. 
He slides from your knees, 
from the cradle of your grief. 
Your right hand claims the broken body,
gathers him to your ribs, 
your left hand gives him back, 
offers with cupped grace 
your two seamless souls 
soundlessly, immutably 
as marble.