Hybrid Literature
"Mythic Momma"
By Gloria Browne-Marshall
By Gloria Browne-Marshall
My mother ain’t no Big Momma. Don’t dare cry.
She won’t pick you up gentle and kiss where it hurts,
never went to the valley to send me up high.
And only says good stuff when I say it first.
She’s not the one in birthday cards, not mine.
She won’t praise my efforts that come up short,
don’t know me more than I know myself or sigh
because I breathe in and out. With me, she’s bored.
My mother was never Big Momma. Her embrace--
it was not thickly rolled pillows of perfumed steam clinging to folks long past grown and gone their way.
No. Children were just hoarders of her golden dreams.
Was life too stony for her to break off a piece? Hungry,
but preferring to feast only off the best parts of me,
leaving bitter-roots to be fixed by Big Mommas it seems
like Santa Clause, only come ‘round when you’re sleep.
Maybe she got no Big Mommas from the start,
To fight the bullies at school or the boogeymen at night,
no soft hands or wordless caresses held her heart
where life’s bridges were too thinly patched to cross tired.
Say I’m blessed. Blessed with her thirst, lips dry, spare,
drinking from shiny cups not found on some rough table.
Tall in my power to haunt those weakened by love to share--
life. Bone cold, fearing, like my mother, I’m not able.
I’m no Big Momma. Tho’ I’ve gone low raising some high,
none of them fruit of my womb. None stopping their claim -
women, men lifting skinny-armed girls to hold up half the sky,
makers of women, loving mommas, birthing sun and rain.
She won’t pick you up gentle and kiss where it hurts,
never went to the valley to send me up high.
And only says good stuff when I say it first.
She’s not the one in birthday cards, not mine.
She won’t praise my efforts that come up short,
don’t know me more than I know myself or sigh
because I breathe in and out. With me, she’s bored.
My mother was never Big Momma. Her embrace--
it was not thickly rolled pillows of perfumed steam clinging to folks long past grown and gone their way.
No. Children were just hoarders of her golden dreams.
Was life too stony for her to break off a piece? Hungry,
but preferring to feast only off the best parts of me,
leaving bitter-roots to be fixed by Big Mommas it seems
like Santa Clause, only come ‘round when you’re sleep.
Maybe she got no Big Mommas from the start,
To fight the bullies at school or the boogeymen at night,
no soft hands or wordless caresses held her heart
where life’s bridges were too thinly patched to cross tired.
Say I’m blessed. Blessed with her thirst, lips dry, spare,
drinking from shiny cups not found on some rough table.
Tall in my power to haunt those weakened by love to share--
life. Bone cold, fearing, like my mother, I’m not able.
I’m no Big Momma. Tho’ I’ve gone low raising some high,
none of them fruit of my womb. None stopping their claim -
women, men lifting skinny-armed girls to hold up half the sky,
makers of women, loving mommas, birthing sun and rain.
