She brought home apricots A sun within each glowed through
warm hued like terra cotta or red ombre She’d put them in a white bowl for us
Gathered mustard flowers sautéed the greens The pollen
dusted her mahogany colored skin clung
Her cornbread tasted of butter and light She made
lemon meringue pie the filling gleamed
In an ikebana vase she put yellow iris with white berry branch
and thistle freesia with peonies Watching awe
Near her
colors filled with light
Something was unjust
When did I overhear
she’d finished third grade
at thirteen
had been raped
bore a child A child
others raised
She put scrambled eggs on buttered toast for us the toast glowed
She had that in her it seemed nothing could extinguish
Sometimes she let me sit on her yellow chenille bedspread
after dinner She ironed let me tell her my childhood secrets She heard
She saw us helping us see ourselves
Imagining we saw her
