(Originally featured in Literary Visions and later in Zygote in My Coffee. 

My mother cleans each inch of the house

Dusts under clay pots from other countries

(My insignificance is average, though at

Moments I've touched stars)

My mother wears long flannel nightgowns

She wears a robe and moccasins for slippers

(The stars I've touched burned my hands

But left no scar to prove the journey)

My mother was an actress but needed money

Because she had a child too young

(I have other scars, imperfections on my body

I could have never been an actress)

My mother worked late hours in an office

While my father pursued his dreams

(The stories of my scars are average

I looked for stars in New York skies)

When my mother left my father

She found another man who left within a year

(Young and hungry, I fled New York

For Caribbean shores and the vastest skies)

My mother’s body glows bright white

like mine -- She wants to dance

(In Jamaica there was dancing every night

When I had left, my father still dreamed at home)

My mother is always reaching

Withdrawing, pausing, reaching

(Stars everywhere! My white skin shining

My father’s skin is almost brown)

When I returned my mother

Told me in the kitchen

He is gone

and the other one is here

(She wants to dance

She cleans

I want to dance

My hands burn from the stars)