she passes the hardware grocery pharmacy beauty salon every Thursday

you’ve noticed such a child content to be invisible

scuffing the leaves

toward the bungalow the hushed backroom

where someone is propped in the high bed her webbed face

her halo of hair past humankind and all its suffering

past seeing now past death too old for death

and waiting for this girl

who thumbs the latch

who lifts the lid of the black box lifts from red felt those silver pieces

fits them together the trick is to breathe across and not

into the small round hole as her arched fingers hover

over the other open holes each finger knows its task she’s fixed

to one purpose Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee

dark out in the street the wind ruffling oak leaves the dark

window lit by the silver flute the white ghost hair the brighter

lights is it her mother come to drive her home

MY MOTHER

my mother my mother my mother she

could do anything so she did everything the world

was an unplowed field a dress to be hemmed a scraped knee it needed

a casserole it needed another alto in the choir her motto was apply yourself

the secret of life was spreading your gifts why hide your light

under a bushel you might

forget it there in the dark times the lonely times

the sun gone down on her resolve she slept a little first

so she’d be fresh she put on a little lipstick drawing on her smile

she pulled that hair up off her face she pulled her stockings on she stepped

into her pumps she took up her matching purse already

packed with everything they all would learn

they would be nice they would

apologize they would be grateful whenever

they had forgotten what to pack she never did

she had a spare she kissed your cheek she wiped the mark

away with her own spit she marched you out again unless you were

that awful sort of stubborn broody child who more and more

I was who once had been so sweet so mild staying put

where she put me what happened

must have been the bushel I was hiding in

the sun gone down on her resolve she slept a little first

so she’d be fresh she pulled her stockings on she’d packed

the words for my every lack she had a little lipstick on her teeth the mark

on my cheek would not rub off she gave the fluids from her mouth

to it she gave the tissues in her ample purse to it I never did

apologize I let my sister succor those in need and suffer

the little children my mother

knew we are self-canceling she gave herself

a lifetime C an average grade from then on out she kept

the lights on day and night a garden needs the light the sun