Turning one hundred my mother
would have turned to me and said:
‘You live now in Sofia?’
There’d been no way to tell her.
It’s been twenty-three years
since we spoke. Sharp red buds
were like midges coming in
and out of focus in the sunlight.
In that small room, the art
of loss was what I tried
to master. She’d gone
by then.
And now we live for the moment
when woods on the mountain brown.
