Parents lose children to mental illness, drugs, alcohol, death, and even unwelcome distance. Sometimes it helps just to say, “Yeah, me too.” Understand a mother’s heart in this piece from my collection, Little Boy Lost.

Forged in Pain

There is a hollow place where the hurt was.
And a little rain falls.
It glowed once like a smelting pot
Spilling over with the ache of your perfect pain.

But the burning place cooled and hardened
Taking the shape of despair,
Looking something like a heart,

And then it broke.