Mother, The day I learnt to tie my own shoe laces you sat beside me, pausing the aching earth beneath me You exhaled a proud exchange between your lips which filled my skies of its#moonand ocean of stars— those lips never stopped kissing my father's old heart. You became gentle as the cotton that rested upon my sleeping spine while I was the absentminded fingers, the silvers of your hands had polished. You were the summoning gaps between my teeth of greeting apology— shy in admiration like a child's burning cheek from a fever, from a fall's untimely chance. You were years of home in the soles of my feet, binding each vein of hope, no God could ever extinct. And the day I tied the knot, You were the pressed flower tucked between the pocket by my chest, closest to where I always know you would be.