stomach tumbling
 with sick realization:
 innocence now lost
 
 just three days ago
 she was climbing up the limbs
 of youth’s bulging tree
 
 her arms strong and thin
 (but what was bulging inside,
 ready to burst free?)
 
 to know that she knows
 kills me from the inside out
 (as a mom, a slave)
 
 failures drop like leaves
 of youth’s impending autumn
 to crunch with my woes
 
 i’ve always loved leaves
 (but there’s no satisfaction
 in this kind of crunch.)
 
 she searches hollows
 to fill a hollow within
 (i’ve searched too. in vain.)
 
 to know that she knows
 brings every dark doubt to light
 (no tree-limbed safe-net)
 
 what will she climb next?
 (the strong arms of a stranger
 who will leave no leaves…)
 
 a mom’s greatest fear:
 to lose children to branches
 that i cannot reach