When all is done, Mama shows me
how to knot the final stitch, careful
not to tug too tightly at the thread.
The doctor must have performed
the same art on my birthing mother.

Replace the surgical light
with afternoon sun and the ob-gyn
remembers how her mother mends
the bedsheets, the holes in the curtains
expertly darned. One daughter

after another — the same lesson of mending
tears. Look: my stitches are amateur
copies of the ones on Mama’s only skirt
but she forgives each one. It will heal
just as the brutal stitch on her belly healed.

My own belly is smooth and young
but I trace the invisible stitch,
the lines that beckon me home.