I fear my daughters

will only remember me

as the mother with cold hands—

not the mother whose belly

they strained to distinction.

I was not the mother

who slapped the Lakota clean

out their mouth

with a, Skin

color don’t mean

nothing anyway. We born

in America, we all

Native Americans.

I was not even

the Kokum with shorn

braids who slipped Cheerios and soap

between lips puckered

tight as your birth

father’s fists.

But I was the mother

who cleared the eczema

with dollar store jars

of Vaseline, bootleg bear

grease, and spruce salve.

I was the mother

who pressed

good dreams into eyelids, oneirologist

conjuring sweet fantasies

exploding through darkness.

I am the mother

who did stay, who could

remain, who packs in the hurt

and kneads it into my own.

---

Author:

Jessica Mehta, MPhil, MSc, NASM-CPT, E-RYT500®, RCYT®, RPYT®, YACEP®, Reiki I & II

Jessica (Tyner) Mehta is a multi-award-winning Aniyunwiya interdisciplinary author and artist. Born and raised in Oregon and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, she is currently preparing for her Fulbright U.S. Scholar award in Bangalore, India. Jessica is the recipient of a 2021 GLEAN: Portland award, Regional Arts and Culture Council Make/Learn/Build award, and she is the upcoming poet in residence at Hugo House in Seattle. She had three books released in the past year, including When We Talk of Stolen Sisters (Not a Pipe Publishing), Selected Poems: 2000 – 2020 (Meadowlark Books and winner of the national annual Birdy Prize), and Antipodes (New Rivers Press).