Still Life with Phone Call
Three time zones away, my mother
watches the dogwood bloom.
What can the blank mind think?
Her words snag on the tangles
from brain to throat. They float
all the way from Tennessee.
They hesitate. They tell me
cryptic stories of braiding my hair,
how there was no rubber band,
how the braid came undone,
how the three sections were lost.
A pause after a pause after a pause is silence.
I tuck her breathing behind my ear,
the phone heavy as scissors.
First published in All We Can Hold: Poems of Motherhood 2016. Web version.
watches the dogwood bloom.
What can the blank mind think?
Her words snag on the tangles
from brain to throat. They float
all the way from Tennessee.
They hesitate. They tell me
cryptic stories of braiding my hair,
how there was no rubber band,
how the braid came undone,
how the three sections were lost.
A pause after a pause after a pause is silence.
I tuck her breathing behind my ear,
the phone heavy as scissors.
First published in All We Can Hold: Poems of Motherhood 2016. Web version.