By Makayla Jennings

It was always in the morning 
when your praises and hymns 
echoed throughout
every house we homed.

Sometimes the songs changed, moving from telling it on the mountain 
to his eyes watching the sparrow,
but for the most part they stayed the same.

“He’s holdin’, he’s watchin’, and protectin’ me...”

But Mama,
you sung as if those chords
were forever evolving,
sung in our junky kitchen
over the richest golden eggs, 
sung over sizzling bacon
hissing like the Devil himself, 
sung over fluffy biscuits
that rose with each crescendo, 
and on special days,
sung over soft, buttery pancakes.

You sung those songs over a static radio
that didn’t do your voice justice, but still your voice 
climbed up those creaking stairs and awoke me 
stirring me to sneak down and ignore my chores 
despite the trouble I’d get into, just to watch you sing.

And Mama,
I don’t think you remember
or ever even realized
that I knew the pain of missing last month’s payment was aching you 
that I knew the pain of slaving to feed me was breaking you.

But Mama, I listened to your early morning gospels
watched the god you sang to wrap their arms around you, dry your tears and tell you that it was
going to be alright, and that you were gonna be fine. 
Cause we had woke to see another day
and had praises to sing too.