"Mothers" depicts the last time the speaker was at home and had connected with her mother. The stylistic choice of referring to her mother as "mommy" suggests that the speaker is looking back on the memory through the lens of her younger self. As she paints the picture of her mother sitting in the dark, the audience can clearly see the love and admiration she holds for her mother.

Nikki Giovanni was born in Knoxville, Tennessee and has published countless collections of poetry in addition to several works of nonfiction, children's literature, and an Emmy-award nominated recording of The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection (2004). She received a B.A. in history and attended graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. Many of her first published volumes of poetry were said to have been in response of the assassinations of influential figures like Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.