A black mother’s love

is sculpted by

the fixed deck of cards she was dealt

as a person of colour –

misused and hardly understood

Yet she kept fighting

with knives in her back

chains on her wrists

poison down her throat.

For her children, she hoped would

never experience the trials and tribulations

that she had.

She had hoped for a life for them.

Because why would she painfully leave

her mother country,

be stripped of her family, her rich culture and language?

For everything she had hoped for to be taken away by one fatal stab.

How can you tell a mother

holding her new-born child

that before she sees her last day,

her son’s body will leave this earth

before her own?

There is no greater pain than a mother’s sacrifice.