The Difference Between Mom and Dad

She draped me in her blue butterfly
pajama top when I told her I was

cold, and I didn't want to wear it but did.
My mother, my home for nine months,

twenty-two years, and six months
plus four days after entry to this place. This

shelter of a person allowed me
to grow, nurtured and fed me. Inside her,

somewhere behind the soft white flesh
of her belly, she protected me.

In the dream I had there was a girl
searching for her lost

father. Her mother, was the only
person she had because he might or

might not have been hiding
behind a white door nailed shut. Somehow

it is my experience that she is the only
one I've ever had. He is the one who trailed

in shadows, lingered behind. The quiet one with
the video camera, that without warning

erupted, a volcano of words and saliva spewing
pent up anger and resentment

from a small, empty place
A black hole, whole in being alone.

The magician of sorts, she defused
him like rain over embers.

There is nothing you can do to
underestimate mother nature.