My mother is a mantle.
She is a cloak. She settles
heavy on my shoulders, and
the shadow she casts distorts
my shape. It is her gift
to us: to bear her weight,
to wear her well. I am not
ungrateful. I have sought
comfort, sheltered beneath
the parts of herself she has
cast off to cover us.
My sister wields our
mother like a blade, dons her
like armor. She is a mother,
herself, now, and she is
radiant with the gleam
refracting off the parts of
our mother she has polished
and taken for her own. I wear
my mother like a yoke. Heavy,
heavy, heavy. Making me,
already small, smaller still.