Mother's Pain

You made your life with what you know,
What you were given:  
The meanest scraps of existence,
The narrowest reprieve:
That those years left you standing,
Though transformed; a bright, mutilated star.
Now your body is a scar,
A testament to the enormity of childhood,
A monument to the worst of the worst.
I find you at the shores of suffering:  you weep
Attending the deepest sorrows,
Keeping the unmended edges of your pain.
I am there with you, and watch, wincing along.
Your tears are in my mouth, too,
Their learned bitterness, a weight at my throat.