She stands at the edge of the universe

of herself, royalty on permanent loan

from the city of Frederick. She adjusts

the church spires in her crown and we side-saddle

along the sidewalk in front of the art gallery

where she hangs. Mother, daughter, queen,

where have you been all my lives, but here?

An arsenal of artisanal wines, a nectar fit

for Goddess Number One, so that her image

steps both in and out of focus, out of frame.  

I remain your biggest fan, the one loyal subject

beset by music and words on the canvas of your stage.

I am a prototype lost in translation, a slave

for any other label than the one you pin inside

your jacket, the property of your majesty.

I send out a single cast, a longshot over the far

banks of the river, and hook it every time.

We are family, a disparity of diasporas long

given up for the past, yet still you breathe

and set sail for warm horizons where the sun

puddles each night. I call out to you in esteem,

yet you are also the one I fear not cross no

matter the argument or amount of drink. In the cool

and calming, you are the fulcrum of this exercise,

the moment of lift in the calves extended.

Mother may I, I say, and you adjust the bracelets on

your wrist. Each day hammers itself shut

with two-penny nails and a sack lunch

at the park bench, remembering the part

where you declare all is forgiven. A child is not

what is left over in a game of long division.

A child is the very milkshake of the thing.

A straw cuts through the ether,

like the very blade of what can only be described

as justice resting at a child’s nape.

Forgiveness becomes akin to coronation,

the rust of a marigold standing witness.

Mother, daughter, queen.

She lifts her face to the sun,

half-expecting the light to stutter into eclipse.