The Dusting

Woman Rising

A women’s rite: wrapping a towel

about your plum-colored nipples

and supple belly.

Time flashed ahead to wrinkled arms,

freckled hands – you and me.

 

Mothers, aged, longing for safety,

stolen, just before

the ending.

 

I powdered you today –

Eyebrows, brown-toned

streamlined, just so, with eyes,

mirrors of love.

 

Tears welled with images of women,

caretakers, healers throughout

time, assisting their mothers.

 

My Mother.

In the fitting room I put her paper-thin breast

in a bra and cried behind the curtain.

A last rite of passage.

 

Today I dust your breasts.

Tomorrow my daughter’s hands

will lift me gently, lovingly, patting

me dry one last time.

 

I glimpsed ahead in time.

2010

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