WEBVTT

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This next one.

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So I have three babies,
they're not babies, they're old

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and stinky.

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My baby is 16, she's a
junior in high school.

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I also have a 20-year-old who's
a student at UT in Austin,

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and my son is a
college graduate,

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I'm very happy to say, and
he lives off on his own.

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But when my son got accepted
to school in New York City,

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and we're from the south
side of San Antonio,

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it hit me really hard that this
was right and this was good,

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and I'm glad that I had
the sense to let him dream

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and to follow what
he needed to do,

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and it didn't hit
me until a week

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after he had gone that my
baby is in New York City.

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And I realized that I had
been preparing for this day

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for so long.

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I wrote this poem a
week after he left.

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It's called The Blessing.

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I have ignored you for a year.

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I have not dwelt on the
soft fur of your arms

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or the way you rubbed my cheek
with your own starry cheek.

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I splintered your hands
away from my heart

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when you exited me.

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Of the men who have
claimed my body,

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only you reflect
my exact goodness.

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Tragic as a cotton
field ripe with bloom.

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But I have not dwelt
on this either, not

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in one year, or three.

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The way you break open your
own throat, singing, sculpting

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one world another or
kiss a girl in my kitchen

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calling her my
love, my love, no.

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I have ignored you for
a year, or six maybe,

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not touching your feet or your
shoulders to dab them dry,

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not humming in your
ear as I did once,

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not holding your head against
my chest in the sad night,

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I have not dwelt on other
women who speak sweetly to you,

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laugh with you, or hold your
head against their chest

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in the sad night.

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I have ignored you
for a year, or 10,

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finally severing the root,
purging, drying out the heart,

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go.

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