This next one.
So I have three babies, they're not babies, they're old
and stinky.
My baby is 16, she's a junior in high school.
I also have a 20-year-old who's a student at UT in Austin,
and my son is a college graduate,
I'm very happy to say, and he lives off on his own.
But when my son got accepted to school in New York City,
and we're from the south side of San Antonio,
it hit me really hard that this was right and this was good,
and I'm glad that I had the sense to let him dream
and to follow what he needed to do,
and it didn't hit me until a week
after he had gone that my baby is in New York City.
And I realized that I had been preparing for this day
for so long.
I wrote this poem a week after he left.
It's called The Blessing.
I have ignored you for a year.
I have not dwelt on the soft fur of your arms
or the way you rubbed my cheek with your own starry cheek.
I splintered your hands away from my heart
when you exited me.
Of the men who have claimed my body,
only you reflect my exact goodness.
Tragic as a cotton field ripe with bloom.
But I have not dwelt on this either, not
in one year, or three.
The way you break open your own throat, singing, sculpting
one world another or kiss a girl in my kitchen
calling her my love, my love, no.
I have ignored you for a year, or six maybe,
not touching your feet or your shoulders to dab them dry,
not humming in your ear as I did once,
not holding your head against my chest in the sad night,
I have not dwelt on other women who speak sweetly to you,
laugh with you, or hold your head against their chest
in the sad night.
I have ignored you for a year, or 10,
finally severing the root, purging, drying out the heart,
go.