did you leave me,
as a frightened teenage mother would,
naked and crying
on my parents' doorstep
to live my life
knowing I had come from you
without every knowing you?
Why, I have asked
when bad things happened
(and bad things have happened)
why have you forsaken me?
What I failed to see is the way in which
you are the water that fish swim in
and the world through which I move
I do not have the faith of saints
or profits
or even that of mystics.
But I have been given the gift of knowing you
as I know the breath I have been given.