My Mother
She asks me to take her portrait.
I ask if she loves it.
She says, “It’s not for me, it’s for you.”
I pretend I didn’t really hear it. Because I can’t really hear it.
Rubbing my back as I fall asleep in my childhood bedroom
Walls covered in the mural she commissioned that would spark stories
She listens. The greatest gift she gave me was that she made space for listening.
She was safe, and she taught me to listen to my own.
But I can’t hear her today.