My Mother Believes in Me

My mother believes in me
so the odds bow more to my favor.
She guards a heart she carries through life
like a basket filling with flowers
she doesn’t know are hers.

Love also believes in me.
She holds the opening key to my houses
and turns in at my door and sits on my bed
and waits for my fear to grow tired.
If I touched her like an heirloom glass…
or as I lift bread from the oven…
or as rain covers the ocean…
but I have cursed my hands
with the ten doubts of the Christians
and often they are coarse as sand
or still as basalt.
Though when she sees me, she smiles.

My friends, how they believe in me!
I accumulate a debt on the holidays
and in living rooms over coffee
I will never be able to pay.
They trust an alchemy of hope and sadness
will deliver gold.

Porto Alegre, Brasil, 1991

My Mother Believes in Me – Mark Schultz