The Mother

by Gwendolyn Brooks

Abortions will not let you forget.
You remember the children you got that you did not get,
The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair,
The singers and workers that never handled the air.
You will never neglect or beat
Them, or silence or buy with a sweet.
You will never wind up the sucking-thumb
Or scuttle off ghosts that come.
You will never leave them, controlling your luscious sigh,
Return for a snack of them, with gobbling mother-eye.

I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed
children.
I have contracted. I have eased
My dim dears at the breasts they could never suck.
I have said, Sweets, if I sinned, if I seized
Your luck
And your lives from your unfinished reach,
If I stole your births and your names,
Your straight baby tears and your games,
Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches,
and your deaths,
If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths,
Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate.
Though why should I whine,
Whine that the crime was other than mine?--
Since anyhow you are dead.
Or rather, or instead,
You were never made.
But that too, I am afraid,
Is faulty: oh, what shall I say, how is the truth to be said?
You were born, you had body, you died.
It is just that you never giggled or planned or cried.

Believe me, I loved you all.
Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you
All.

This is one of my favorite poems by Brooks. It has a very raw, pure voice- the voice of a mother who has gone through one or more abortions and feels extremely guilty. This poem captures her regret at having stolen their futures and her begging for their forgiveness. It also portrays the mother’s confusion, trying to express the truth, while unable to say it out loud, and her love for each. It is a simple piece, but very realistic and written with feeling.

Caesura: “Whine that the crime was other than mine?”- Since anyhow you are dead” give pause so that the reader can think on the previous question and the admittance of guilt.

Repetition: Last stanza- “Believe me, I loved you all. Believe me…I loved, I loved you/All.” This is used for emphasis and the depth of the mother’s love for her children.

Enjambment: “You will never neglect or beat/Them” and “if I seized/Your luck” and “But that too, I am afraid/Is faulty”