for my mother
All of these are bonds: your voice when it snags ………………..on the hope I will stay; the bright spoon
on the side of the plate; the angle of your face; …..…..your question, your second question;
the lint you lift from my coat …..…..……….like fog; the offers; the gifts; the clicking
of the stove. You ask what I want. …..…..I hear you, early in the morning,
dragging the trash cans down the driveway’s ice; …..…..……….I see you, folding my father’s clothes,
uncreasing excesses, rinsing out …..…..a cup, writing poems in your head
at the kitchen window. I see you making it all rhyme; turning …..…..……….to tell me you see
a rabbit nosing through the latest frost, …..…..through the lace of dead leaves,
but not wanting to wake me …..…..…..…..(always folding me in, mother, always
the warm hold of more time), always you remind yourself …..…..to tell me later.