Maybe my most important identity is being a son
my mother
asking how
to open a tab
on her laptop,
to email a photo,
calling to ask—
can you change
the lightbulb
at the top of the stairs?
my mother
spending hours
helping me find
a doctor’s form,
a hearing aid battery,
anything
misplaced, my mother
who keeps leaving
her keys in the doors
or on the walls,
who keeps saying
I might have to change
the locks, mother
of self-sufficiency,
of beads and trolleys,
of handlebars,
short-tempered
spiteful mother,
mother of resistance,
licorice and seaweed
on the table,
lonely mother,
mother needs-no-man,
mother deserves my cooking,
deserves a long sleep,
a cuppa tea, a garden
of lavender mothers,
all her heads up,
mother’s tooth
falls out, mother
dyes her hair,
don’t say graying
say sea salt
and cream, remedy,
immortal mother.
Source: Poetry (March 2019)