My mother complains

of body ache and stiffness

as she stoops

to straighten

the limbs of Dracaena trifasciata.

Yet she carries the house

like she carries

the streets,

the city,

the hills

and the patience of the Equator.

She can’t sit straight

her tailbone             juts out. Yet—

The roses have never had to lean

on the aspirations of the succulents.

She distributes egg shells

neatly, proportionately, across the vases—

A cat prancing across the solar system

re-arranging

the planets,

the moons,

the Sun

and the memories of dinosaurs.

I need more Vitamins and

meaning in my bones, she says

scratching the roof

of her mouth, searching

for the memory of elephant apples.