Written After a Visit from Mother

Ninety

I'm taking everything off
she announces, clawing at her clothes.
A new scar gleams on her mended hip.
Where did this come from, where is it going?

A cross-hatched seam
in the center of a body's landslide.
A cradle for children, a long-ago man; a broken wing.

She begins brailing her whorled fingertip down
the red raised tracks. This is not what she expected.
A railroad crossing pocked with stopsigns.
A fire escape going down.