More Sky in Her

Trying to grasp their maturity
is thrilling
in a way I still cannot understand

No one tells you this

They tell you about the leaving
the empty rooms
the quiet house
the laundry becoming smaller
the food lasting longer
than it should

But no one tells you
what happens after

How your world
reconditions itself

How one day
you speak to your son
and hear a man answer back

How his voice
carries the weight
of his brother’s voice too
and for a second
you are standing
inside both of them

These men
have surpassed my height

They are broad now
Deep-voiced now
Private now
Their lives moving
with a force
that no longer needs
my hands

And still
they began in me

That is the part
that makes me almost dizzy

They were once
a flutter
a hunger
a foot beneath my ribs
a name I had not yet learned
how to call across a room

Now they stand in the world
as if gravity
belongs to them

And I stand here
trying to understand
how something can leave you
and still make you larger

How love can grow taller
than the body
that carried it

How a mother
can be emptied
and expanded
at the same time

No one tells you
that after they leave
you do not become less
of a mother

You become a mother
with more sky in her