Nina S. Padolf writes

Love Is Not As Clean As A Hospital Room

(For my biological Mother, Sally)

On this day, my birthday, I smell honeysuckle crisp air

while I sip my coffee. The owl’s low pitched echo

settles, as doves peek in.

Love is not as clean as a hospital room.

Sally left bare armed, like that hollow spot

where roots bulge with secrets.

She was abandoned by her mother and missing lover.

Sally’s pain stayed woven like spider webs

that keep the captive dangling.

Forced to celebrate my birth in silence.

She never talked about it until

I turned nineteen and sent out for

my original birth certificate.

Her name and age revealed

along with my birth name: nothing remotely like my current name.

For my father’s name, only an empty space.

We met downtown with her husband, Bob.

She tells me, I was her first born.

My biological father was engaged to someone else.

She shows me pictures of my half siblings,

we exchange numbers and addresses.

She sends me cards for the holidays

and letters over the years.

We keep in touch even after I marry and move away.

My siblings grow up and have children of their own

and my girls and I wonder why our names are not noted in her

obituary.

The mother dove heads closer reminds me to stay away

from her nest, tucked in the upper corner of my porch,

where bricks separate homes.

I pause -- feel the morning rest

then unrest--

think of Sally and how cancer took her away

on the last day of October.

I unfold her letters

while the dove sings.

Music has no borders.

Visitation of the Mourning Doves -- Lynn Randolph