I keep promising: I’m coming with the chair. But every morning, I wake to fog and my mother’s wheelchair, folded in the front hall, expectant. She’s leaving me voicemails. She needs: the juices, Fiji water, lactose free ice cream, but also, please, (in her kinder voice) Magnum bars, the ones with the caramel. And lactose? She leaves another message: an eyebrow pencil. Someone brought her the face shaver and her graceful arching brows are gone. Will they regrow even into stubble? Until then, she’s drawing them, darkly. I used to watch her “put on her face” as if the face under the makeup wasn’t also her face. She’d be going out for the night with my father, her sharp shoulder blades freed, her décolletage, shocking. A sensuous French word. De – removing. Collet. The collar of the garment. She’d wish Nina and me a goodnight in Polish. Dobranoc, córki. Coeur, cuore, corazon.  In German, the word for heart is herz, a rental car, when the root for mother in many languages sounds like a plea. Mutter. Mamman. Mama. Matka. Mom.

“Rosy” – Nina Z. Temple http://ninatempleart.com/

Ink on 300 lb. cold pressed watercolor paper

23″ x 23″