April 19, 2016

for my mother, who rides horses

Though the animals are long gone and the boots retired for decades, still
the metaphor remains. On our walks in her neighborhood, I've caught
a quarter-moon of calf, taut with memory, and she scans the field across the road
as if it contained the trail back to childhood. As I write this, she is taking photographs
in New Mexico. An eagle's nest. A labyrinth. A table setting. One marked
"Morning view out my window," which gifts me a sliver of pale pink sky,
bare branches, snow. Another is an excerpt from a hallway rug: patterns of
turquoise, burnt orange, bone white. Even from this distance, I can tell she is
squinting through the aperture, index finger light on the shutter, watching the scene
come into focus, squaring her body against the thrill and beauty of it all.