Several people emailed me to say how much they enjoyed this poem by Bernadette Geyer from the fall 2008 issue of 32 Poems. In case you did not see the poem or don’t subscribe (yet, right?), I’ll share it with you here.

When I saw the poem below, I knew I had to publish it!

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Thumbelina’s Mother Speaks: To the Toad’s Mother

With each year’s passing, grief dilutes itself
within my body, portioned out the way
a flash flood ultimately finds a meek
abode to welcome every soiled drop.
In letting go, I learned to be a “good”
mother, the kind who disciplines herself
to think only of what’s best for her child.
Of course, that’s why you seized her for your son—
deluded as you were to think she’d stay.
The sky is never bluer than we dare
imagine it to be. As we think
then so it is. At times, I understand
the desperate hands that reach for more—
and yet, I kick the cat who scratches at my door.