HER HISTORY: MOTHER

I was conceived at the crossing where three ways meet. My father was a shadow cast by the moon.

The midwife who tended my mother gave her an iron key to keep, and I keep it still. My mother was small and often afraid.

She baked bread and pies in the king’s kitchen; we slept by the fire, curled on the hearth.

My mother’s hair was dirty and long, her eyes the color of cinders. Her skin was white and streaked with ash, her hands

were red and hard. She taught me nothing but weariness and pain. I never loved her; I never

blamed her. When she died they buried her deep in the wood and covered her grave with stones. Not even a sparrow sang a psalm.