Age and disease have left me wombless
Though my heart aches to hold a child
Whose cells combine the knowledge
Of mine and my love'sAnd so my works are my offspring
And he lays his hands upon them
And the artistry is more fine
And my students are my children
Because he has taught them, too
But a fosterling has stolen one
A child sprung from my mind
Crafted of my own experience
She has taken it and claimed it is another's
And makes her claim in public
And I, the mother of this art
Am bereft
I thought I was a teacher and guide
To this fosterling
Who dripped empty words of love
Across my ears which deafened me
to my own common sense
And the evil is not only
In the theft of my child
But in the dishonoring
Of its ancestors
My teachers
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