after Maggie Smith

Am I desperate for them to love the world or am I homesick 

for how they love the world? Am I afraid that I could love the world 

if not for them? I don’t mean it when I say

 

I could love the world if not for them. I could love the world 

if not for the world. I could love the world if not for the duty teacher 

who strode to my Subaru this morning and said: You can’t

 

drop off here. Did she say it or did she scream it? Have I gotten

what I deserved? Did I drive away weeping, is that what motherhood is,

an exercise in crying in the car with the windows closed? Motherhood

 

as a pair of sunglasses. Motherhood as turning up the radio,

motherhood as turning from Golden Gate to Juan Tabo toward

the second school. Motherhood in the parking lot

 

of the Baptist church beside the second school. The second child

is yelling at me now in the space where the duty teacher’s voice

still presses down. Is this a place I could make beautiful? Do you ever

 

miss yourself? What I mean to say is: I know I am

their glass city. I have seen my hands in photographs. I was there

on the days they were born. The two that lived, the one that didn’t.

 

The one that lived, the two that wouldn’t breathe. The one that stayed,

the one that was taken and then returned. They are on their way

home now. It’s 4pm. They will come into the house

 

and call for me, jackets sleeving off their wrists. They will run 

from room to room. Forgive me this poem. Forgive the dark behind 

this transom window. Forgive my open arms.