The girl who loved dorothy the most

i was at an event
and she called my name
from across the
tops of the heads
of a crowd

a mother
holding her
daughter the one
who's been
through hell

i don't get
called across the heads
of crowds
too much
really

and turned to
see the two
wading in a line
of shuffling
bodies

the girl is
a spray of wildflowers
in the arms of her mother
the
unbreakable vase

they know hospital walls
that you don't
and prayers to angels
have been sent up
in a swallowing darkness

did you have fun?
i ask
and she nods
and tucks her face into
her mother's neck

i don't know
the color of her eyes
but they remind me
of how i imagine
worlds beyond this universe

they have cracked
open her skull
and have left scars
it's hard not
to stare

i am in love with a woman
who also embraced a child
that makes people
stare
he is my son

not my adopted
son but
he has red hair
anyway
and he is difficult

he has not
seen hospitals
and his head remains
untouched
but he needed a champion

i've known mothers
whose birth of a child
is nothing more
than an expulsion
of an inconvenience

so forgive me if i
love this woman who
holds this girl
and shouts my name
across an auditorium

she and her wife
know you must walk
the edge of a blade
that falling to either side
is not an option

a mother
is a woman
who lives in
the bloodstream
of her children forever

this is not
a song of pity
God favors no
one and loves
the lowly all the same

but something ought
be said about
the women who
live in the
shadow of the sun

and defend
the stared-at children
with the sword of Athena
lest they be slain
by wolves of apathy

it gives them
what the others have:
the right to find
beauty and joy
in anything

who is your favorite?
i ask the child
and she whispers
and she whispers
dorothy