mama dream

Yumna Dagher

my mother, when she was twenty or so years younger,
even before she even had a name for me,
walks between two hills, back and forth and back again
with a great big stick in her hand - oyster 
spit pearl bead sweat a coin purse

sun face – the world was a great face
a burnished sun the two hills like breasts
the wind thrush flying without return and it is something 
so far away to me it’s like that story of Hagar they would
tell in saturday school, of that thirsty baby

sick with colic and how he burst 
that great spring of water with the ball 
of his foot. of that great lady on the brink
of something wonderful. of warm god love!

it’s kinda like it was always there. 
and so in this dream, my mother 
crawls like Hagar’s baby she is a baby herself
between two hills between 

loose goings to keep the good. when she wants to sleep she can
she collects things along the way she wants a house 
she takes a stick and draws four corners
it is her house now i know that house i live there