UNEMPLOYED DOODLES

by Jake Tapleshay

There once was a generation of mothers who had

a generation of babies born still

they carried their kids carefully

to seldom seen sands and sank down to cry

for one hundred and one years

vagabond tears pooled between them

spreading out over every ground grain

buried every one of their heads underwater

and eventually washed every baby out of every arm

stayed still slowly floating up after decades to break

the surface of their tears

they found the world falling underneath their feet,

which made them maternal

somehow they separated seas from oceans

that shrunk into lakes

nurtured structures around rivers where women settled

near the waterways conceived by their sadness

they watched those streams drift farther