Mothers Who Are Also Lovers

an essay on love poems (not of the ooey-gooey variety)

True—there is loud intrigue to new love and younger bodies—but there’s also a certain kind of romance that can be earned only by the patient stacking of a million tender encounters over a long period of time. This type of romance embodies a quiet wisdom, understanding that there will be days of feast just as sure as there are days of famine, and that whichever the day, you can still count on the familiar comfort of the one you love.

-Deidre Braley, excerpt from “Behind The Poet’s Pen”

I’m writing to you from Florida. Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day and we’ll be spending it flying home to Maine, changing diapers across our laps (something I’ve nearly perfected) and doling out thousands of fruit gummies and peanut butter crackers.

In high school, I used to love Valentine’s Day. I’d buy my boyfriend moderately priced cologne and he’d buy me teddy bears and long-stemmed roses. It was all very stereotypical.

Now that that boyfriend and I have three children and have been married almost 11 years, I’m learning that romance is NOT the largest teddy bear in the bin but rather him knowing my order at Thai Me, remembering to grab chopsticks, and bringing home a surprise order of crispy spring rolls to boot.

Anyway, in the spirit of realistic romance, I thought this would be the perfect week to share an essay on one of my poems from The Shape I Take, my new mini-poetry collection on motherhood, intimacy, and all the shapes we take on in the course of a day, a night, a life.

My friend

Kimberly Phinney

over at The Way Back to Ourselves asked me to be February’s guest writer for their amazing monthly feature, Behind the Poet’s Pen, and I chose the titular poem for the collection because it captures a moment in time when I, suspended between Mother and Lover, found myself unsure of which shape to take. It is not an open-gooey type of love poem, but one of which I write:

“Of course, there are so many different types of love, and so many ways to show it. As women, we use every bit of our essence to nourish and nurture those around us, spilling fragrant offerings everywhere. We make love, we make breastmilk. We kiss lips, we kiss the soft peach fuzz atop our baby’s head. We hold and we mend and we create and we comfort, and sometimes we have to shift shapes so quickly that we are caught between two worlds, trying to figure out how to be all types of love at once.”

And Kimberly introduced it this way, and I couldn’t be more pleased that she confirmed this poem is NOT of saccharine stock:

“In a month dedicated to love, Deidre’s work is most certainly a love-song. However, unlike the overly saccharine traditions of Valentine’s Day today, Deidre’s work dives into all the ways we love—specifically through our bodies—and most specifically through the female body. As you know, the best loves are old, hard-fought, and without pretension, and Deidre captures this kind of everyday love in the most intimate way.”

So here it is: one of the most intimate poems I’ve ever written & shared, and the story behind it.

P.S. after you visit the essay—come back here and let me know what you think in the comments!

---

POETRY JAM & SLAM: This Thursday, 2/15 from 8-9 PM EST! Some of you beautiful people are already registered, but if you’re a procrastinator like me, this is my friendly reminder saying “It’s time to ACTUALLY sign up now!”

*If you can’t make this week’s, no worries! Come to next week, or another session in the series. We’ll be meeting for the next 6 weeks. You can sign up for any of the weeks here, too.