Mothers Fight the Urge to Keep Them Close

But I’m trying not to let you go

Further into wilderness.

Signs and tarmac yield to unmade roads,

Paring down to tracks, gates, fields

And beyond, where trees peter out,

Those featureless moors

You walked as a youth

From tor to tor, head down on the upslope,

Lost in the joy of emptiness,

That brain you hate running clear.

I’ll keep fewer tabs on you now

Because you’re not yourself and so

You won’t miss what you don’t know.

Cowardly and distracted

I'll never appreciate

The absence of difficulty.

Do you know but can't express

That all this is because of me?

What a thing to hold on to

When you're unravelling!