“My Young Mother” by Jane Cooper:
My young mother, her face narrow
and dark with unresolved wishes
under a hatbrim of the twenties,
stood by my middleaged bed.Still as a child pretending sleep
to a grownup watchful or calling,
I lay in a corner of my dream
staring at the mole above her lip.Familiar mole! but that girlish look
as if I had nothing to give her—
Eyes blue—brim dark—
Calling me from sleep after decades.
(From The Flashboat: Poems Collected and Reclaimed by Jane Cooper. Copyright © 2000 Jane Cooper. Used by permission of W.W.Norton & Company. Photo by Flickr user mrsdkrebs)
The Dish 