In courtyards of a nursing home,
among the dying greenery,
her slump was barely visible.
White sheets and gurneys
passed on wheels, and there she sat--
sassing chipped mortality.
Chin dipping in oatmeal flesh.
Breasts of cold potato mounds heaped
on the cracked plate of bygone dream.
Her spasms quick, unattended seismographs
for earthquakes buried in her eyes.
I watched her head of ivory for signs of fizz,
some sparkle of a memory,
conjuring amour from rocks
caught and cribbed in dwindling.
Ammonia killed the scents of flowers;
trappings of this Mother's Day
were bed pans next to morphine drips.
Speech seemed almost urgent now,
but words were hard to form and spit.
Pregnant with deliverance, a coin
I spied but failed to rescue from the ground,
its tarnish so inhibiting to youthful kites
who think these strings are permanent.
I watched her lids resume their close,
slowly as an iris opens
next to waning candlelight.
In her hands lay knotted ropes of rosaries
braided in an unmet prayer.
"This destiny is hollowing"
was all she said and fell asleep.
Her tongue was hanging willow leaves
beneath a moon my innocence
had once regarded as a star,
not the chunk of coal it was.
Grace inside a graceless globe,
she scorned the weather rolling in.