When Mama Wrote

Remembering Mama

Her words, plastic shopping bags in flight,
testing the wind,
in shrieks of joy,
Mama, on a serious roller-coaster ride,
thrilled just to experience the drop,
but unwilling to tell too much.

Reality, symmetrical and compact,
scares away her imagination;
yet, undertones of desire,
like paperweights,
hold her in place,
though the lines reel while she writes.

A sudden plunge down the steep hill,
fearing,
through jungles of living,
she loathes to pass her verse around,
but her fingers grip her head in a bony vise,
and her pencil, a bar, secures her in her seat.

When she passes by,
I wave back to applaud,
just to be included in her delight;
her chant touches my ears
with caresses.

I cling to her papers now
to treasure the recall
of that fleeting instant,
coaxing a warmth between us,
and I feel her ride going on
inside the hearts that hold her joy.