The Monday Poem is brought to you by Professor Jim Gormley of the English Department. Enjoy!
Hours Days Years Unmoor Their Orbits
tonight I’m cleaning baby portobellos
for you, my young activist
wiping the dirty tops with a damp cloth
as carefully as I used to rinse raspberries
for you to adorn your fingertips
before eating each blood-red prize
these days you rarely look me in the eye
& your long shagged hair hides your smile
I don’t expect you to remember or
understand the many ways I’ve kept you
alive or the life my love for you
has made me live
About This Poem
“I wrote this poem for and about my oldest son when he was about nine years old and had decided to become a pescetarian after reading a book about the meatpacking industry. My son is now about to turn eighteen and will leave for college this summer. We are still dancing the beautiful, painful dance of mother-child separation and attachment, different steps, different haircuts, same love.”
—Rachel Zucker
Rachel Zucker is the author of The Pedestrians (Wave Books, 2014). She lives in New York with her husband and three sons and is the host of the podcast Commonplace: Conversations with Poets (and Other People).
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