Washing My Mother

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR_UHPxntMY

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"Put on your robe. I'll get you to the bathtub,
mom." A calm like church as the assemblage of
her terry-clothed fragility held onto you as both

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of you walked slowly down the hall. You’d placed

a bath-seat in the tub, you’d turned a gentle rush

of water on, now help her slip out of her robe,

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and just as she had commandeered your baby

body more than fifty years before, you lift her,

naked, hold her spindle legs above the porcelain,

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and past the shower door, to settle on the seat,

willing that the water be the right degree of warm.

You swallow your amazement at her girlish form.
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You wonder at this moment – soaping, rinsing,
drying the frail dying naked woman who had lent

you life – managing to quell the overwhelming “No!”

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determined to forbid it. You can't imagine how you

did it. But now you can. The loving coolness of

her hand! She understood. You understand.

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