WATERING

You used to sing a song
softly as you bathed me
and it would mingle with
the gurgling, lapping water
against the muted green light
of the long afternoons
of cicadas at their chorus
in the shade outside.

Then after lunch
you’d lull me to sleep
with the ballad of a bird
who’d have to fly away
one day
soon.

Your deep forlorn eyes
might not have chosen that life
of tall chores of bringing up a child
in that small house in a small town.
But how well have you sent
the swell of your talent
to this distant city that never sleeps,
yet amidst the noise its music keeps.

Trading the long liquid afternoons
and the song of the cicadas
for a TV,
are you happy now Ma
that in it sometimes
you see me?