I, Me and Other
Poetry by Gill Schwartz
UNMOTHERED
Cries of a Live-in Orphan
What does it mean
never to have been mothered,
to have seen your eyes lovingly held
by the one who held and nurtured you?
To go into the world every day
and deal with others never having known
one who held your being as her sole loving concern.
I feel around my heart and find there is no
cushioning assurance, no traces of that one bond
that declares "No matter what, you are loved."
Everyone is a stranger. The melding with another
was never given, never learned. Left fallow,
untended — thorns and bramble choke the way —
the fertile earth of my heart is left
to weeds and droppings.