A Dandelion for My Mother

How I loved those spiky suns, rooted stubborn as childhood in the grass, tough as the farmer’s big-headed children—the mats of yellow hair, the bowl-cut fringe. How sturdy they were and how slowly they turned themselves into galaxies, domes of ghost stars barely visible by day, pale cerebrums clinging to life on tough green stems.   Like you. Like you, in the end.   If you were here, I’d pluck this trembling globe to show how beautiful a thing can be a breath will tear away.