Motherless Daughter
There was no forgetting
the way her mother brushed
long amber curls against
her back, after rinsing twice
with vinegar; a daily routine─
the way it shined like the wetness
of a river, or a penny caught
in the sun’s most brilliant glory.
In those last remaining hours
while her mother’s breath
became more shallow with every
minute, she yearned for that feeling
again, the tender stoking of bristles
weaving through locks, her mother
requesting a motionless grace
while putting every strand in place.
Even now, when a soft breeze
passes through an open skylight
she stands still and imagines being
loved like that again.
**
Prolonging Destiny: A Coward’s Confession
You’re unpacking boxes in a warm garage,
recovering treasures and mislaid years
all folded in cardboard and stacked
to the ceiling, blocks of things now
fastened inside, like butterfly wings
pinned to canvas or once spoken words
from years ago, and you hear your mother
calling your name and you hear your answer
through muffled walls and you moan your prayer
to an unseeing Jesus as if forever can be repaired
and you sense the slap of your father’s hand
and you hum that song you always sang
when the world moved faster than the pace
of your heart and nothing mattered but a kiss
on the cheek or a sweet goodnight under a delta moon,
or the language of children when someone listened
or the wedge of a peach into a milk-filled bowl,
or your grandmother’s voice through a dovetailed
drawer where you kept all the pictures of lifeless
people whom you’ve never stopped loving
yet still can’t decide if they remember you now
and just when you open the carton marked
“keepsakes” a black widow spider grazes
the box and you grab a broom to smash
its belly, then shudder in shock while
the hourglass spurts right there on your memories,
you and infinity just one smack away.
