Her son –
at 32 years old,
would have had bright eyes,
tough hands
and a firm handshake.
His teeth, intact,
would have lit up like
fairy lights, and his dimples would have held
his mother’s tears and her laughter.
Somewhere near the bridge over the river,
there once was a green meadow
with purple flowers
that smiled upon the face of the sun
and danced along with the patter of rain.
He was the purple flower with
his palms for leaves
that could hold the
tears passed down
as family legacy.
His mother, a museum-keeper,
shows us the hole on the
wall from where a small ray of sunlight enters.
She says it must be
a trickery of the artisan
to have carved out a clock in the wall.
When asked how much time
she has spent with those bricks
she says, it’s from the year
he was born. She has taken care of these bricks
like she would have taken care of him.
Her son’s smile hangs on the walls
of her museum of memories
that remind her every day of the
gaping hole in her own heart.