Sarah Dickenson Snyder
Finding You
Imagine that we could pick our mothers that there was a parade of them walking by and we stand behind some gentle barrier to watch and select from the mothers who carry spools of thread and pins pursed in their lips the ones whose fingers smell of onions and garlic the resolute who iron their sheets the scent of steamed cotton following them like perfume the strong and rural with chickens and goats close behind the ones with buckets of plastic dinosaurs and dolls weighted in their arms the dreamers with moons for eyes and stories about space and weightlessness the ones who know about waves and the shore and we could choose the one who looks at us with eyes like mirrors that say I want you as she bends down and reaches out a hand and we realize that we are not choosing that we are the one being picked and loved just because we came to the parade what if we knew how much we were wanted the way I did years later when I finally found you how we can find our family create a new whole our own testaments and gods and home
Sarah Dickenson Snyder lives in Vermont, carves in stone, and rides her bike. Travel opens her eyes. She has three poetry collections, The Human Contract (2017), Notes from a Nomad (nominated for the Massachusetts Book Awards 2018), and With a Polaroid Camera (2019) with recent work in Rattle, Lily Poetry Review, and RHINO. sarahdickensonsnyder.com