Metaphor for My Mother

My mother is an apple tree.

we

fall

close

we, her golden red delicious
we, her pie cider sauce
we, her stem core skin.
My mother is an apple tree.
She knows what it’s like to hold us,
to have us harvested.

My mother is a carnival.

up

right

step

to her cotton candy lungs
her Ferris wheel face
her rollercoaster limbs.
My mother is a carnival.
She is the pieces mirrors and beagle-tongued
barker who holds our tickets at the gate.

My mother is a mountain lake

beautiful

quiet crater cold with water
silk like milk and wings
opal-chested swan of the treacherous crags
My mother is a mountain lake,
liquid hands hard enough to still hold
five rivers by the tail.