Seven

For my mother

Under a crippled limb tree, held by two slabs 

of slanting wood, behind a single chained fence

hooked to rusty metal poles with jagged heads 

and chipped green paint, in balding grass

and cold cracked-gray dirt, I fought green-eyed

Ella as the neighborhood kids cheered her on.

Then I saw my mother, slender and brown, 

come out the screened door of our red brick apartment

with one hand on the hip of black slacks. I remember 

her tight cheekbones, arched nostrils, charcoal

wavy hair, shadowing her right eye, falling over 

a gray turtleneck shirt onto confident shoulders,

and that mole, standing on glossy lips, stoned 

by anger as her dark eyes with horse lashes

dammed my tears and owned that moment

when her deep voice cheered me on.