My Mother’s Mints

In our apartment of four,

Four chambers, four humans,

Four limbs to each one

My mother walks.

In the mornings, she hustles

To settle under the white

Of a narrow tube placed high

And firm on the pastel wall.

There she sits, a queen of early dusks.

In the ungodly hours

She picks some beans,

And pricks some greens.

When the gold of sun sweeps in,

The queen rises up,

Setting down her blade of iron

That has grown old in the curve of her grip.

In the golden of the morning,

She marches to her mints

“Mints, they sleep,” she tells me,

“And wakens with the sun.”

By her mints, on the flat of an old wood

She rests her bottom

And runs her fingers

Over the lush crowns of many herbs.

On her fingertips rest many kisses,

Love and an eye of her.

Raiding the sleepy heads of her herbs

She breaks a few for her chops

For her chops, chicken and chutney

Another couple for the teapoy and tables,

A branch of green on the wood, glass and

Marble of our pink abode.

Thus, the artist paints some green

Into the pink, browns and reds

On our tables, in our vases, and

In our curries slumber some.

And those mints bask in air

Of the void rooms and noon

From the ninth to the eighteenth hour of day

Guarding secrets of a house

At the dusk, my mother dawdles

Weary after a day of toil,

Yet she thinks of her mints

And picks them one by one

Spent like her, they will be

Withered and wilted in their spots

With much care, she picks them up

Drops them in their wicker casket.