Ann Weil
Image by Jan Canty on Unsplash
Ann Weil is a writer and educator from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Her work can be read or is forthcoming in Third Wednesday, Heron Tree, Clementine Unbound, The Healing Muse, Halfway Down the Stairs, Thimble Literary Magazine, and numerous other publications.
The Skin of a Mother
is not taut, like a clothesline drying diapers in the sun. It’s not easy to wear, like sweat pants,
not weather-proof, like the Chewbacca costume we made for a frigid Halloween. The skin of a
mother is not returnable, like that too-low-cut Homecoming dress and the four-inch heels; it’s not
discardable, like the red plastic cups on your dormitory lawn.
The skin of a mother is a straitjacket. No one tells you this, but you’ll see. After the initiation
rites comes the swaddling. The whole world shrunk to one room, one woman with the power of
God. At first, so snug and safe— you love it. Then, like a blood pressure cuff, the squeezes start
to hurt, you can’t catch your breath. Your heart is a battering ram, your chest demands more air,
you are desperate to run, the light flickers. The stars emerge and you long to join their brightness.
You almost do. But a small cry crawls its way through your eardrum into your brain, and you
know you cannot leave because your child needs you more than the light. You let go the breath
you’ve been holding since this whole thing began, giving room to your limbs, space to your
spine. You wriggle and squirm like a moth shedding its cocoon. You reach with grasping arms for
that bawling life and begin again, if only until the nine p.m. show.
©2021 West Trade Review
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