Her Love

her blunt words cut through skin
“you don’t care about us,” she says
“you only care about yourself,” she says
But her arms are full of warmth and her eyes full of light and she gives away the last penny in her purse

her icy shoulder freezes blood
“I’m very disappointed,” she says
“you don’t know anything,” she says
But she cooks their favorite meals and cleans their sickly faces and stops to listen though she’s weary

she throws a heavy book and it leaves a bruise on a ten-year-old face
she takes a fly swatter to a twelve-year-old for insolence
she breaks up a fight between siblings and takes it out on the older one
even if it means forcing an unpeeled clementine in a mouth of a teenager

but she coos loving words at a three-year-old who stands in the car she’s driving
and she calls a sixteen-year-old crazy when she buys a $300 concert ticket
and she drives hours from home to give a twenty-year-old spare keys

and she loves