A half century today. Sleep was slow
and sludged with a ninety-story grid of steel

open to four elements, and I was climbing
with my mother to the concrete slab at its summit.
We crouched together under steady winds,

stared out at the city’s plump parking
garages. Hundreds of thousands

of blank spaces, each eager to bleed birth.
I woke up, made breakfast and ate alone.

Mother is in her hospital bed,

suspecting the surgery has been denied.
Her lungs must swim still, with wisdom.

It is long since she attained her own fifty years—
that Monday morning our neighbor’s daughter

came over with her book-bag, her school-loan

violin in its soft black case. Plopped
into the passenger seat as usual. Halfway

to a hundred, she said, and laughed. The eye
on the kitchen wall is springy to the touch, like cartilage.

It will open, soon. I could spoon

that tissue out into a clean bowl, press
it flat with the heel of my hand.