Mother
       

My abuelita cried the last time
my mother left her waving,
holding onto her black iron gate,
her Mexican home aqua
like ocean behind her.

Her last visit, my mother dragged
a mattress down the flight
of stairs to sleep by Abuelita's
bed, moved now into the dark dining room.
My grandmother didn't want
to hold a cane or walker,
so she held my mother's hand.

When my abuelita died
it was summer, and August raged
Ohio with ragweed.
Humidity clung like gauze.

My mother sat on our porch a long while.

Sometimes, she says, she still
feels her mother's hand in hers,
soft as water,

stronger than an undertow.

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Copyright © 2021 Shuly Xóchitl Cawood All rights reserved
from Trouble Can Be So Beautiful at the Beginning
Mercer University Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission