by Andrea Potos
Breakfast Eternal
for Mom
The clearness of seeing:
in the corner booth still, her
Senior Special: two hotcakes,
two sausages and eggs over easy,
a side of wheat toast doused in butter,
the two of us, here again,
her dark pink smile,
Greek skin still lovely after
80-plus years, her face etched so certainly
upon this air filled with the reassuring
clatter of voices and dishes that does not stop.
I love it here! she tells me again, isn’t Life
as certain as it ever was, she and I
face to face, drinking our coffee
black and filled to the top.
~~~
I can’t stop remembering that other day
perched on the cliff of the solstice,
my mother’s last hour
through the ICU window–
the lake a glittering ocean
and blazing Aegean sky
without clouds or words,
cruel and flawless–
onslaught of Summer
that entered without her.
I feel it — all of it. I too have lost a beloved mother in similar circumstances, of similar backgrounds. I appreciate the kinship, so powerfully expressed.