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.