Memory, with Unwashed Clothing and Children Left Behind

When I went away
on work trips and my children
were still small, my mother
would retrieve from the hamper
a nightshirt I'd worn, or a scarf
I'd carelessly draped over a chair.

She'd line their pillows 
with these unwashed articles, 
declaring my ingrained scent 
would remind them of me and keep 
them from  being disconsolate 
or having bad dreams. 

I never asked if these unlikely
charms soothed their separation
anxiety, somehow releasing
a cloud of comforting scent 
that slipped into their beds,
resembling my body. 

Like everyone else, we bear
the deep impression of hurts
and slights. These graft themselves
to what we remember of joyous
times, stirring in us like the Chimera
from Greek myths— she who is fire-

breathing monster made of different 
parts: golden-maned lion and bleating goat, 
fierce dragon and blue-scaled snake. And if 
she is mother besides, her children's cells 
live past birth in her body and in her brain, 
knitting a garment she will ever wear.