My mother’s nickname, given to her as a child,
meant she was always busy, putzing with this
or with that. No photos of her as a little girl,
but the past’s what we ask of it, and I can see her
in that house that burned down in the ’30’s.
crawling over a braided rug in the parlor,
hard on the knees, on her way to take a look at
something just out of the frame, her parents
delighted, together on their horsehair settee.

The other day, in a box of memorabilia,
I found a color slide that I must have taken
when she was in her early eighties. She’s feeling
her way down over the rocky bank of a stream.
in a blouse and a skirt I remember her sewing,
wearing soft slippers, toes curling over the stones.
She’s holding her hands out wide, as if she were
taking the hands of the air for support, as if
she were just then learning to walk, on her way
to the edge, to get a close look at the water.