Chrysalis

by Rita Budrionis

On my knees, I pulled up her socks
        Socks she hated
        Socks she couldn’t grasp
Dirty  beige with rubber tracks like crushed cereal on the sole.
She would have hated that
        if she’d known they were socks.

She complained in phrases without verbs.
Birds spoke her native tongue.
Outside!    To me!
I laughed at the joke that wasn’t
        because she did.
Arm in arm
       we walked in her horror.

She became both more and less of who she had been.

She walks toward me in dreams now
silver stockings, starburst slippers
My mother
Gaily toasting with her wine glass or
        sitting quietly by my side

As I remember her.
But I’m not there yet,
not yet.