Every fairy tale, another stepmother
tries to kill her children.
Starve or burn or bury them
in locked rooms and dark woods
and ovens, and you recall your history
is one of ovens, so when your son
tries to climb inside, you worry
about his willingness.
And every news story, another
mother loses her first born—
a car crash or crime or accident.
The past, a book of mothers
trying to unlearn how hatred
festers in the blood
and passes down. How hatred blooms
on skin, inside the mouth
a bursting poppy. How made
of flesh, it even looks
a lot like love at first—
your son’s great-great-
grandmother’s for the man
she’d never marry
because he wasn’t lined up in a row
next to her husband
nor made of seed and chernozem
nor marked
for hatred. So she passed it
on to you, and your son too
will find it, reaching out
for his reflection, his shadow
in a field of wildflowers.
He will trace it in contours
that seem too small
to bear such feeling,
and when he looks at you, you’ll know
there is so little you have done
to teach him this, but not enough
to help unlearn.