singularity

You’re as quick as they come

and pretty much always have been

I think I can remember back to the summer that you truly honed it

You went from being the morbidly anxious little girl

shocked and scandalized by every little one of our references to sex

(do you recall hiding behind the office door that one time? Because you totally did.)

To the young woman

that owned everyone of us

And I recall our resident prophet’s forecast

That the youngest and shyest of us

Should one day transform into a singularity

In the presence of which we would all melt

When we weren’t melting

We were being scorched to ash

And if I wasn’t being scorched to ash

I wept with the pride of getting to be in your orbit

Now don’t think that I would ever see you in any other way

No matter how filled out

No matter how

what others might describe as

worn down

by the expectations of your sorority

that otherwise stirred within you open rebellion

For all of the loathsome glare we gave you at your sister’s wedding reception

when you left our lunch table, panicked, to join in the mandated celebratory circle

Whatever the fuck that was

Never think that I ever

ever

felt that you caved

I did not

I knew you to be acting in accord

with the dictates

of love

for your sister

for your mom

for her mom

All of which need to matter

All of whom did as well by you as they knew how

All of which needs to mean something

As well as they knew how, with what they themselves were given

And I cannot deem otherwise

SO LONG AS

it means something

Don’t think I don’t get that

It’s not easy but

My mother raised me to get that

I suspect you will raise your son to do the same