I bring my mother back to life, 
her eyes still green, still laughing, 
She is still not fashionably thin. 

She looks past me 
for the girl 
she left her old age to. 
She does not recognize her 
in me, a graying woman 
older than she will ever be. 

How strange that in the garden 
of memory where she lives 
nothing ever changes; 
the heavy fruit 
cannot pull the branches 
any closer to the ground.