JC’s new piece for Mother’s Day, 2018

We lose our mothers

Not on street corners

or in parks or grocery stores

though we may be mislaid

Today, I wear a dead-woman’s coat

Not my mother’s

Hers were too large

I lost myself in their embrace

as I combed through her clothes

their old-woman scent still strong on

what she wore until she couldn’t stand to dress

I pushed deeper into that closet, touched

garments she chose in middle age to flatter

her long legs, to hide her extra layers

Then Channel No. 5™assaulted me

I rushed outside

onto the balcony that

overlooks the city

breathed in that view

just as she did

until she could not