I would like to have this forum include all forms of intimate relationships. In that spirit here is a poem I wrote after burying my mother's ashes in the family plot, next to her mother and grandparents.
Buried my mother the other day
Dug a grave in the heavy red clay
of Northern Alabama
She was so beautiful, our Jeanne Summers
Generous and kind
Brilliant and fun
And wounded in ways I never understood
I judged her
For not healing herself
She judged me
For disrespecting her ways
Both of us doing what we needed to do
To survive
Which tempers the sorrow and regret
Somewhat
Weirdly disorienting missing you dead
So used to missing you unavailable
Quite different missing you
Now that
You are unavailable to be unavailable
I remember your tenderness
Your laugh
And all the ways you called my name
The digging was difficult
Incrementally pushing
Through the slippery sticky red
Once again covered in vernix
The soil of our ancestors
I owe you this womb
A final service
I laughed with joy
Grateful for one more chance
To be a good son
A loving son
Your son
Always.
—M Moore (2017)