Saliva is dirty

I tell Anali in the back seat

She sits quietly after having spit in her hands

trying to reconcile the filth of her saliva

with the universal cleaning power of the driver’s

I follow the road and

I wonder if she will ever have the urge

to use her spit to clean her children’s faces

reasoning her mother-mouth substantially cleaner than

the blueberry smear dried to the baby’s chin

Mothers are

instinctual tongue-scourers

like birth-weary mares or barn cats

I consider the indifferent sow in the fairyard stall

sucked dry by her crop

only she do I struggle to picture with the urge

to scoop her offspring back into her womb

or to latch her newly-weaned –lets back to her breasts

No, she and I are different sorts of mothers, I think

I peek at my silly saviors in the rearview mirror

and I want to hold them as tight as our bones can withstand

Parking, I conclude no beast can out-instinct a human mother

with a recently vacated womb

though some will try