Remission

By | 1 May 2021

Mama is waiting for me perched on her cliff
with her black, bat-winged parasol opened
scrutinising the sky with owl spectacles,
there might be sun that sears our backs,
there could be rain dropping pellets,
she has thoughtfully dressed
in a light fabric, hewn from the temerity
of leaves from all seasons,
the young green cleave to the bodice,
weaved in with the creases and crinkles
of fallen and rested,
needled into the flow of the skirt and sleeves.

These days she is so easy to carry,
her 75 years of story and lamentation
fold into the contours of my back
becoming my carapace as I stretch my neck
towards the horizon of densely designed
scaffolds and cranes holding the steel
and concrete blocks,
we scale as one species.

It is only when we reach the turret
of “Yiatrina” Γιατρίνα: informal speech for female doctor
she disembarks to unveil
her ruptured, heroic body
awakened from death
by telescopic insistence,
Mama looks to me to voice her gratitude
and acceptance, as I become the myth
of the humble whisperer
‘upon settlement in strange land’.

After the tick of health,
Mama would rather I climb her back
but her carapace shrunk into her spine
when she turned 51,
and we both know that my heart
was birthed for two souls.

Through pathways spilling cables like entrails,
she screams in fear of our fall
until we reach the turbulent weeds near home,
where she dares her body to escape my back
and trudges the climb with nose to the ground,
as if a mushroom would sprout with a sniff,
her memory creeps and entangles
my feet to her door,
she implores me to enter
with a fig she snatched from a passing branch,
knowing I am now the eight-year-old
with the hunger for anything sweet.

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