Birth Mother, Portraiture

Another moon face, unsmiling. She has placed the green tea kettle atop the kitchen stove’s lit burner. She looks not at her portraitist, but instead through the window and upon the wicker basket from which she has drawn the morning laundry to air-dry outside in the garden. Her hair, pulled back and knotted at the crown, like my own. She suspects rain, fears for her garden-hung laundry. One hand touches her collar. Her blouse buttons are rimmed with silver. Later, she will finger the hem of her blouse, decide that her clothes are soiled, add another load to the laundry, and dry the load inside on the bathroom radiators. The rain will have fallen mid-afternoon, unearthing the city’s smells of ferment.

She does not enjoy being photographed. She finds her frozen face uncanny. Later, she will ask her portraitist, “Is that me? I hardly recognize her.”

“That…