By Julia van Gorder

Saturday noon
wrinkled matrons take
frail mothers out for lunch,
exchange smiles of patience
past the single red carnations
in glass vases.

One parked next to me
as I eased my bent mother
into the car
on the cliff above the seawall.
She was chatting to
her seat-belted mother
quietly dead.

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This poem previously appeared in Canadian Women's Studies, Volume 20, #1, Spring 2000.

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