Kevin Ekeh
[My mom carries me, her child,]
My mom carries me, her child,
on one hip,
the rent in her left hand,
and tomorrow
in her chest.
The job says eight to five,
but motherhood
has no punch card.
No sick leave.
No weekend.
She cleans hotel rooms
we could never afford to sleep in
scrubbing away other people’s lives
as if hers weren’t already
fading
into the corners.
Her back aches from bedsheets,
from silence,
from the weight of “just one more year
and things will be better.”
Sometimes
she hums lullabies into the mop bucket,
pretending it’s an audience,
that someone’s listening.
That someone sees.
She tells me:
Mama is strong.
But strength
isn’t always loud.
Sometimes it’s just
showing up
again,
again,
again.
And at night
she eats prayers for dinner,
folds her hopes between cracked palms,
anoints my head with oil
so maybe I dream
of a softer life.