Mother’s Bond

By L.Y. Rinn

Sons of mythos love their niángqīns

in sacrifices unimaginable, o

pantheon 

of filial piety: Mt. Tao, surgically

cleaved & uprooted to set an immortal

mother 

free; the debt of a three-year

pregnancy repaid in língchí, each

self-slice a slab 

of penitent flesh returned to a mortal mother.

Unlike immortal sons, the luxury of

lifetimes 

infinite escapes me. I love you as one

does with an hourglass on the horizon,

which is 

to say, in a way that will never suffice.

One that consciously, viciously compels  

regret. Through the unspoken & the half

outreached, hesitating palm that fails to

find 

its way into your calloused own.

hrough the fear I dare not name, nor

even breathe 

life into. To name is to birth is to

curse— one you cast when I was

delivered 

screaming, still reeling from the last loss

of a mother whose name I no longer

know. 

A curse broken & another branded afresh.

Will you, like the mortal mothers of

mythos, 

promise me another life on your deathbed?

One after the other, willingly &

wretchedly 

shackling ourselves to samsara’s ouro

boros cage: maw-mother swallowing 

tail-daughter over & over & over again.

I’d trade nirvana three thousand times 

over to be a child in your bosom again

because I love you more than

liberation.