On my lunch break, an email
pops up from my Mom
where her subject line’s
jazzy glee
shakes me wild.
I tap my touchscreen
to see an x-ray
of her healed clavicle
smiling in rotation.
With chili sauce
torching my mouth,
I zoom in onto her ribs
arching into a cloud
when I remember the text
my Dad sent last August
as I walked
through an autumn dusk:
she tripped on the dishwasher door,
busting the bone
like cracked ice.
Now she can lift
her thirty-pound granddaughter
in a home
of matrimony and maternal strength.
