Rooting by Ann E. Wallace

Your birthday was full
and happy, your skin
aglow from a day
of sun and water.

And yet you carried
a scrambling frustration,
a rooting, an unnamed
yearning.
By day’s end,
nothing satisfied.
You wanted
more.

It has been four months
and you are still
learning new ways
to miss your mother.



Ann E. Wallace, a poet and essayist from Jersey City, New Jersey, is author of the poetry collection Counting by Sevens (Main Street Rag). She is online at AnnWallacePhD.com and on Twitter @annwlace409.