Poetry

The History of Mothers of Sons

by Lisa Furmanski

All sons sleep next to mothers, then alone, then with others

Eventually, all our sons bare molars, incisors

Meanwhile, mothers are wingless things in a room of stairs

A gymnasium of bars and ropes, small arms hauling self over self

Mothers hum nonsense, driving here

and there (Here! There!) in hollow steeds, mothers reflecting

how faint reflections shiver over the road

All the deafening musts along the way

Mothers favor the moon—hook-hung and mirroring the sun—

there, in a berry bramble, calm as a stone

This is enough to wrench our hand out of his

and simply devour him, though he exceeds even the tallest grass

Every mother recalls a lullaby, and the elegy blowing through it