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A Mother Steeled by Stewart Stafford
A haunted mother in despair's glade,
That echoed with her feral screams,
Sifting through tiny bones for reasons,
Catharsis an absent but invited guest.
Healed knees, once bloody, kneel,
Cobwebs wiped, storm damage fixed,
Bittersweet, her baby has taken wing,
His bruises, all of him, now flown above.
Daybreak's star field on the final vigil,
Dropping the self-flagellation whip,
Fragment memories of her infant taken,
Striding forth, her scars a living map.
© 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.
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