LIKE EVERYONE ELSE’S MOTHER

Voilà!

At the end of June.

Judith drives Rachel and me

to Grand Central Terminal

to meet the counselors and kids.

She’s fiddling with my hair,

telling me to have a good summer,

checking my suitcase,

asking what she needs to send me,

acting like everyone else’s mother.

For once.

As if she’d been admitted

to the brain transfusion unit

and they gave her a new one,

plus, no charge, a new heart.