My Mother Who Can't

see my face clear enough

to know me in Macy's

until she hears my

voice wants to go

out in trees, look

for the comet.

She sighs that she

used to be able to

jump up from a yoga

position, now has to

catch her breath. She

wants to learn to

disco, says when

she wanted to dance

they wouldn't let her

still she danced in bare

toes as if her feet were

in pointe shoes. The

comet she says like a

child dreaming of

marzipan, we could

go out in the trees

look up for that

brightness lashing us

with light that won't

be here again for

200 years as she moves

by touching the

scarred red wood

slowly up stairs she

used to take three

at a time

Copyright Frontiers Publishing, Inc. 1998
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