Our house was a depot
for containers of baby teeth
to be tested for Strontium 90.
We drank powdered milk
to avoid the fallout,
went on the marches.
It was hard good work,
living in the crucible,
daughter to a woman who cared for the world.
My mother knew all the roads,
unmarked dirt ones
with covered bridges,
secret panoramas,
She gave me a map outlasting
politics and geography.
We’d spread our blanket
under a star-salted sky,
turn our charts to find
the ancient pictures.
She gave me a universe
of brilliance and delight.
They give her something to breathe in
and later, an injection.
She lies under the machine
that reads radiation,
while drugs squeeze her
like a sponge.
I point to the monitor,
a dark mass on
a grainy image of lungs.
The technician smiles:
It’s just the shadow of her heart.
