on my mother's head
and she cried
but it wasn't about the lamp.
Though the ironic illumination
it provided isn't lost on me.

She's a 57 year old little girl terrified  
of talking to her sister
about their mother's looming death.  
She cowers at the power of her thoughts;
years of being bullied in school and belittled by parents
echo around in her darkening gray matter canyons
convince her to fold like tin foil.

If her tears were about the lamp
they wouldn't sound so heavy
when they fell.