The Mom Touch

A poem dedicated to moms and the strange power they have to make everything seem okay

By: Stella Mehlhoff

when i went home last weekend, i lost my keys

i searched everywhere for them, sticking my hands in couch cushions

emptying all of my coat pockets, listening to the dryer with the vain hope

that i’d tossed them in there somehow, and i’d hear their awkward jangle

but after i’d exhausted my list of places to look

i crumpled onto my living room couch, resigned to replacing them

when my mom came in with a familiar shine between her fingers,

saying simply, “honey, were you looking for your keys?”

every time it happens, and every time i am amazed by it

you know what i mean, that mystifying mom thing

the uncanny maternal ability to seamlessly solve all your problems 

making you feel grossly incompetent

but also deeply grateful

it’s the same thing that sent you running inside 

when the kids were leaving you out of their game at seven years old

when your mom smiled and pressed a teddy bear into your hands

so soft and full of love, it made your skin glow to the touch

like, somehow, she’d infused a part of herself into it

the same thing that made you confess your heaviest secrets 

at the kitchen counter at 15 years old

relieved that it all felt a bit better

when your tears speckled her shirt collar with salt

the same thing you search for on the phone line from four hours away at 20 years old 

that you find in your own gut when you’re forced to search for it

standing in the cold and the dark, knowing the ember of her

will have to get you home

the same thing that brought your mom to your grandma’s house at 40 years old,

after the divorce upended your lives,

that opened her front door with full arms

and turned us around with $50, sturdy advice, a little hope, things to fill the fridge

the same thing that you discover

falling asleep in the nook of her shoulder

resting after a month of adrenaline

because even at the end of the world

even when you are old enough to know the future is out of her hands,

she still makes you feel safe

a trusty it’ll-be-okay

not just band aids and pedestals 

sometimes lifelines too