Mother of wood, of river, Mother of dream, of safety
beyond the next edge of the world, of quiet life, Mother

of resistance, of walk together gently in soft earth as we
move past the stones our fathers lodged in our throats,

Mother of treats in snake oil milk, of rivers worrying
the world stone to thumbprint, of rejection quiet

on the milk carton missing persons ad,
Mother of mysticism, of children washed

below the heart’s surface, below their best lives, below
our ravenous faith, washed below the blurred edges

of perception’s borders, Mother of Pearl by the pint
to wash away this bucolically hopeless Texas sunset,

Mother of the ways I waste time while human beings sink
beneath the current, plucked from under into some guileless

darkness, Mother of wishing this world away one single-use
plastic at a time, of detritus on the surface and all that’s hidden

below, of gnawing on bones to allow our teeth space
to recognize their distant cousins, of sucking the ivory

clean, Mother of all the trash down the river
and empty into the Gulf of Namelessness

Ed O’Casey earned an MA from the University of North Texas and an MFA from New Mexico State University. He’s the author of Proximidad: A Mexican/American Memoir. His poetry and prose have appeared in a variety of places throughout the years. He lives in San Antonio, Texas.