My Mother
by Kathleen Radigan
Met my father
in summer
at some wedding.
She won’t say
if they kissed
or felt clairvoyant
twinges during Vows.
“That’s private.”
She cracks pistachios,
flings shells out
the car window.
I bet her hair hung
like a waterfall,
cheeks sunburnt,
green-eyed in the pew.
Kept clean fingernails,
knew her grandmother’s
friends by name.
She’s like tarot
now, all predictions.
Hides old selves
under starched shirts.
Talks like a bottle rocket.
Radiologists call
from a bright
ceilinged world
where death and life
are zig zags on a screen.
Can it be true?
each day is dead so soon.