My mother‘s beauty was liquid
Uncaptured by camera
Uncaptured by man
Both sybillitic and sublime:
A determined goddess of destiny
Indelible as threads of DNA*
With blood and love
It poured from her vessels
Wineskin to throat
Eyes and lips to my mouth
Sybillitic, sublime
In the photograph
She is fully present
Dominant and clasping me
Yet I also have a presence
And can be understood:
Petulant mouth, unsmiling
Pencil dangling, barely held
Curiously languid fingers
For one with such ill will
Had she staged it all?
Placed the pencil in my witch hand
Left hand leaning towards the devil
Where she‘d foreseen it would stay?
All that before she spent then
Hour after hour
Reading William Blake
And Walter De La Mare
Aloud to my infant ears
Incantations in my hair
Potions in my brain
Any choice I thought I had
Was lost to free will‘s illusion
As it always was and
Always shall be
At least for me.