For Mom

A quiet sidewalk fracture catches my mother one evening after dinner a silent summer sacrifice to the sidewalk gods of Dauphine Street

A knee makes contact

and the bleeding begins

as a straw hat tumbles to the ground

It's July of 1999 and

there aren't many people here

It's hot and exhausting

and who even comes here in July?

Besides us

An after-dinner white knight appears

another tourist

to carry the broken sacrifice

back to her hotel

while the sidewalk stain remains

My mother

is four years older then

than I am now

and my knees are terrified

of sidewalks everywhere I go

and what kind of sacrifice

they expect from me

My mother

doesn't get to take something away

without leaving something behind

In the end, how much will I owe?

~ VoodooRue, April 2023