Watermelon Baby

Mother’s Day

I wrote this on April 12th 2000.

This afternoon

while the sky rained on the garden

we took root in the red earth sofa,

my beautiful niece and I

hugging cushions and the moment.

I read to her

my last poems.

She read me hers.

I wrote of endings

the end of waiting,

of ovaries dying.

She wrote of small berry breasts

and a watermelon tummy

full of her seeds.

So maybe one day I will be a great-aunt

since I won’t be a great mother.

Just a different ending.

Still full of promise.

For both of us.

And 13 years later, snow flakes falling from a lead sky, I sit on  another sofa - my sister's - next to this beautiful niece - with her baby daughter in my arms..... sweet and heavy as a watermelon. Filling me with seeds of joy.