breakfast with my mother
is now a song of
tapping,clinking noise
as the tremor in her hands
grow beyond the medications
control

she will be 85 within month
and has become small and birdlike in appetite

conversations have become
vocal exercises in loud short
projections
but she is not deaf
the world has just stopped
speaking clearly

her eyes
have seen so much,
her heart
has encompassed both
great joys
and deep sorrows

the sharp cutting edges of
her mind
are now becoming
butter knifes
it saddens me to know
her mental acuity
is dwindling like yarn
unraveling
to pool in a
muddled mess
of colour on
the dusty floor

i watch her
over my coffee cup
we are so
different and disparate
i once truly believed
my self
to be anothers child
our personalities
were so divided by lifes spectrum
but as i muse now
as a mother myself
watching her
it comes to me
if i am just an inkling
of her strength and grace
then i am an amazon
incarnate
incarnate