I think about you often, lying beside
my grandparents on the hillside
overlooking the Kanawha River,
bathed in the utter silence
that only the dead can clearly hear.
I think of you more often than she
who replaced you, she who later
replaced me with her own, I
an adjacency, still useful but
no longer fully or truly valued.
I think of you lovingly, knowing
for those too few moments
my tears watered your grave,
mourning the mother I never
met but knew so well in the core
and the essence of my very being.

First Published in Flora Fiction,Vol. 4, Issue 4, Fall-Winter 2023
https://florafiction.com/literary-magazine