MommaMendUs – A Poem by Catrice Greer

Catrice Greer reads MommaMendUs

MommaMendUs

We girls fly home
to our mommas again
for braided hair
and brown sugar laced
baked bean kisses…and hugs
hugs for time

Time to remember
that we are priceless princesses
not $5.95 8×10 glossies
spread open at the crease
laying still for all
waiting for anything
but our pages to be turned over
Our glossy now dull
Our edges shorn and tattered
by feigning eyes and hands
groping…needing

Needing
Her fingers now
in my hair
Now kneading close
to the scalp

My trembling
fingers fall
too close to the edge
of a scar-flecked heart

Oh, I am a leper!
fingers Interlacing themselves with wounds,
wounds encrusting a reservoir
of stagnant pains
slowly healing…

We girls fly home!
on a 747 impulse to know
Where? It was we were supposed
to be? Going.

Images of your strength, momma,
come speeding at the wing
a little compass compassion
to pass on
Little understandings
bear the gifts of directions
wrapped in smooth, hushed
Voices
Pearls!

We string her voices
together
we wear them ’round our necks
like precious stones
Totems to carry us
Totems to pass on

Full mouths of color
busy opens fans
spread before us
hurrying away pain hovering like afternoon heat
cloaking fervid prayers
               … we kneel together
And she calls …God!
like church on Sundays

We girls fly home
on tattered wings
broken by unloving winds…

Momma mends us
And so… she heals
…mommamendsus…

APOTHECARIES for our souls…
…mommamendsus…

She the Momma heals!
…mommamendsus…
…mommamendsus…

We girls, fly home
to our mommas
to learn to bury
and not marry
Our dead.
We are not weak
but learning
to love
Our Selves
and to share
that love we are not weak.

We girls fly!
In blues and greens
Earth goddesses
Winged Crones
to combine strengths and loves
We build homes for the home…less
           our sons
                our daughters
We girls,
broken hearts still beating
pushing us on
tattered wings that
unravel
in gusting winds
Fly
Broken
In strength, we girls continue
to fly!
          pushing… to
home. We heal. Our Selves.

In love
… mommamendsus

We are not weak…
just needing our mommas…pushing…to live… to fly

And so she heals…
… mommamendsus

And …so…she…heals

Mommamendsus … pushing
Mommamendsus … pushing
Mommamendsus … and so she heals…

Mommamendsus
Mommamendsus
Mommamendsus

And so she’s healed
MommamendsusMommamendsusMommamendsus

And so she healed
MommamendsusMommamendsusMommamendsus

Mommamendsus

December 1993 (Edited September 24, 2020 16:31)

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Catrice Greer @cgreer_greer is a poet and writer who resides in Baltimore, Maryland. Her poetic work explores a range of topics about the human condition including mental health wellness, healing, transcendence, spirituality, ancestry. Her recent poems were published in the Afro-American Newspaper and local newsletters. She is currently working on her first chapbook. When not writing poetry, she enjoys her solitude, walks at her local park and arboretum, photography, fine dining, cooking, and singing with her community chorus.  

Banner Art: ‘Care For” — Digital Art by Robert Frede Kenter