Now I See You

(poem for my mother; Ada Maxwell Tynes)

When did I start looking at you, my mother?
I don't know;
but often, it's your hands I'll watch
all brown, and bumpy-smooth
those same hands that
held and cradled me,
in my new life.

I look at your nose,
so high and strong, for a Black woman;
the same nose of
some noble African tribe. But where? Where?

I look at your eyes.
They've seen so much. So much.
You'll never tell me.

The hardest look of all
was the one I took of you sleeping.
and, missing my dad, still;
you lie with pillows piled high
and nestled close beside you, in sleep.