My mother’s arms
arc gently,
paintbrush in hand.
She is decorating
my bedroom walls
with flowers;
pink petals, purple shadows
and sunshine yellow centres.
I watch, sat cross legged
in the middle.
Cross legged on a beige carpet,
surrounded by the magnolia walls
my mother is gracing
with her colours,
her charm, her beauty
and the way she furrows
her brow and purses her lips
when she concentrates slightly.
I am in awe of her
elegance and strength;
the tightened skin
across her shoulder,
poised to make the world her canvas.
Even after all of these years,
the heartbreak and the pain,
she still paints flowers
on my bedroom walls;
when she helped me hang curtains;
string fairy lights;
sew cushion covers;
and taught me how to keep
the fifty pence antique mirror
we bought at the school fete,
when I was the girl
sitting cross legged in the centre
of her mother’s magic.
A mother’s magic
to which time and its aches
prove no match because
she is a goddess of flesh and blood
with ambrosial love
thriving between all of the spaces
in her bones.
Photograph: Kristana Reed
© Kristiana Reed 2019
Beautiful and tranquil
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This really touched me. Thank you for making me feel.
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Thank you for saying so ♥️
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You are welcome. It was beautiful — to say the least.
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