"You are your illness
now, learn to love it,"
my mother used to say.
(Beyond the bushes
people strolling by at dusk
would talk with a different sense.)
And there is no consolation in her logic,
not to mention mercy.
My mother
speaks to me:
warm energy
through her palms to my shoulders.
Sometimes
she touches my forehead
to measure my health.
Shelley Elkayam