Poem for my Mother

May your hair grey and grey but never fall out
and the ones that do fall, may they grow back
thicker than ever.  May you never have to see
your scalp in the mirror again.

May your eyes heal, nearsighted farsighted,
it’s 20/20 for you.  May you see things you’ve
never seen.  May you see things you’ve never
wanted to see.  May they haunt you.  May they
change you.

May the world conform to your beliefs, then.
May your sons never have sickened and balded,
never have cried to the wretched clumps of hair
on their pillows in the lonely morning.  May your
husband not get angry from the little things,
don’t touch those papers, don’t pour that tea, don’t
eat before I’m sitting and have been served.

May your daughter not have collapsed on the
porch where you could not be, may you not have
had to drive 7 hours to see her body on white
white sheets.  May she not have seen your love and
hated you for it.

May you heal the world with your gnarled hands,
so stiff from arthritis which I will make sure you
have never had.