Photo by Eric Sorensen

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.

~~~

On the First Coldest Day of Winter

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.