His earliest memory begins
with the hush of his mother’s hands
holding him close before bedtime,
ends with a song she hummed
him to sleep with before she left.
He grew like a stone fruit tree
whose limbs were pruned
when the plant was a sapling
to raise strong branches for bearing.
Now he knows the song was a prayer
she released into the world
so his older self might remember
what her hands had felt like
when he knew
he needed them most,
so he might hum the same song
to conjure her
from the same realm she conjured him:
from nowhere,
from the blush of her own prayer
before she knew how to pray.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 16, Issue 2.
Jeremy Windham is currently earning his BFA in creative writing at Stephen F. Austin State University where he also studies music and violin performance. His poetry can be found in The Blue Route, Psaltery and Lyre, Steam Ticket Review, The Lake, Diverse Voices Quarterly, The Portland Review, and is soon to appear in Rainy Day Magazine and Southern Humanities Review.
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