The handmaid will do anything for her child—
Reductive, this mother-love above all others.
I, who have mothered, know other hungers.
She stays long after she has the chance to go—
Reductive, this mother-love above all others.
I’d have chosen books over the lost child.
No job, mate, friend until the stolen daughter’s gotten—
Reductive, this mother-love above all others.
I’d have left her to be a different kind of person.
Though daughter cells reside inside her, she chooses—
reductive—this mother-love above all others.
Like mine, her biome’s vaster, a hundred fastnesses.
She glares daggers but grabs the gallows-rope—
Reductive, this mother-love above all others.
I’d not cost lives, just spend my own.
I feel bullied to look longingly at children—
reductive—this mother-love above all others.
I’d pick, instead, the icy swim across the border.
