I hear her whisper

under her breath
picture her kneeling

over the prayer rug
palms face down

against the fabric.
She hides her hair

when her husband’s 
nephew comes for a visit

and smokes lingering cigarettes
with her coffee

and after lunch
and sometimes she shows me

old photographs of herself
as a young mother, tan

shoulders, sleeveless top.
When she wakes up at dawn to water

the fig trees and the blushing folds of roses 
I wonder if she reminds herself

that this bit of earth that she looks after
was snatched away for years, years ago,

and how years later it was taken back. 
I look for something

we could bond over 
no grandchildren to keep us up

trading stories of raising boys
and what our bodies may have lost.

So I tell her about the plant pots
on my balcony in the city

and wait for her to teach me  
the shifting colors

of hydrangea
and the ease of growing jasmine.

How some leaves pass
quicker than others

and how some—
when you least expect it 
— lift their tiny necks and

open up.