The poem is being told from a man visiting his mother. The man is fairly old judging by his ninety-three-year-old mother. Being a daughter myself, I’ve found it easy to emotionally relate to the texts. He, being wise enough to take care of his mother, “performs caretaker tasks”. He cleans the house and he washes his mother’s hair. Meanwhile, he notices how old and breathless his mother is with her “shallow breaths”. When he starts washing her hair, he sees how fragile her scalp is. He wishes he can take back all the years life has taken away from her. My favorite line is in the last stanza, “He senses what it was to be one with her, a babe in her womb,” I found him understanding how she might’ve felt when he was still in her womb. As helpless as she is, he wants to take care of her. Though, he realizes that it won’t be long until her death. The last two lines from the poem prove the point. He knows her final going and will be a heartbreaking moment for him. I’m sure I will feel the same way when I see my parents grow old. I will crave for the times I’ve depended on my parents, seeing them so vulnerable.

Washing His Mother's Hair

Visiting his ninety-three-year-old mother
he performs caretaker tasks,
dusting floors, scrubbing the toilet.
Her living circumscribed by shallow breaths
and a rickety heart, no longer
a gardener and a keeper of poultry.

"How about a shampoo?" he asks,
wishing to restore sparse wisps,
make them springy and wavy
as when he used to set and comb her hair.
Even more to touch her scalp,
find there the throb of life.
At the kitchen sink he washes, rinses,
carefully tempering hot water,
rinses once more, towels dry the handful of hair.

Winded, she sits while he combs.
Touching, breathing, touching, breathing,
He senses what it was to be one with her,
a babe in her womb,
and knows her final going--imminent--
will claim some vital part of him.

James Ross Bailey

Spring Love

The black smoke rises from the pan,
you smile and whisper that I will make a good wife.
Scrambled eggs with thousand island dressing
and oven-baken tortillas from the grocery.
You wince and eat the food all the same.
I don't mind you not liking breakfast
but that's all I have. Please leave soon-
your fiancee may wonder at
the sudden sweetness of your smile.

Your belly's a beer barrel's paradise- warmth in the cold night.
Your skin shines like moonlight and breath- the beat of my heart.
I notice a little mole under your armpit and
you try to peer with all your might. I laugh.
You shimmer among a million scattered dreams
and the haze arrives as you hold me in your arms.

I know there will never be another man like you.
And you, with a serious look, tell me I am your only Spring-
beauty with eyes of a doe and smiles of butterflies.
I worry about her but you just hold me in your arms.
For now, hush,
let the Spring be savored and our woes be gone-
two souls in a field of tulips and the smell of cut grass.
Sophie Leu