Singing for My Mother

​

Sometimes when my

mother was cooking

dinner she would

ask me to sing. She

loved the old church

hymns and I would

croon like a robust

 

bird while she stirred

eggs and butter and

evaporated milk and a

pinch of salt into the

cornmeal. She hummed

and swayed and closed

her eyes as if straining

to see God on the

wings of my songs.

 

I sang soft, I sang

loud, I crooned like

a heavenly cherub

as she bent over the

kitchen sink spraying

the freshly picked

vegetables with her tears.