Note: The line “No Black boys die on Mother’s Day” is taken from the poem of the same name from the book A PECULIAR PEOPLE by Steven Willis.
On the Internet,
there’s always
a thread going
that wishes mothers
happy Mother’s Day.
the one day
of the year
that the women
who are charged with
running the world are
supposed to put their feet up–
and yet the feet are up
and at’em
making sure kids
faces are washed
Breakfast is made
and coffee may be
sipped cold–
if at all.
on Mother’s Day,
we celebrate the
mothers of queer children
Disgarded and forgotten
By family of their births
the mothers who
are aunties by blood,
mothers who do
the job of mothering
when no one else would
whether it be in classrooms,
boardrooms, or in laundromats.
mother is both
noun and verb–
and because it is both-
–a thing and an action–
it is constantly needed
I know there was a poet
that one time that said
“no Black boys die on Mother’s Day”
because life is present
wherever a mother may be
Or lay their heads.
Happy Mother’s Day
to the women who
decided to mother,
even when they did
not know how
happy Mother’s Day
to the women who
stand in the gap,
and fill the gap,
and know how
to slap
away all things
by which attack the
children that are
in their charge.
Because trust and believe
no village is complete without a mother…
It is the women of your blood
that have gotten you this far.
It is the women of
your understanding
and of your ancestral forgetting
who have gotten you
to a place
by which you,too,
can step into the realm
known as mother.
Whether your womanhood be new
Forming, learned or Ancient,
because we know the ancient of days is also an us…
Happy Mother’s Day
is the whisper of breezes
through open windows
on summer nights
is why we fight
it is how we rage
against the dying
of the light…
go on mother we see you.
-JBHarris, 5.14.23
I Breathe Fire 