birthday

Death is the mother of beauty.

--Wallace Stevens

every time she

goes to look

in the mirror

she's expecting to

see her seventeen

year old face

but if death

is the mother

of all beauty-

mom turned fifty

four on sunday

she made blueberry

blintzes we drank

fine champagne and

I laid her

body naked on

the bathroom floor

spreading my fingers

over her skin

learning each wrinkle

scar and regret

how beautiful she

was she is

she will be-