Last Photograph of My Mother Laughing by Sasha Pimentel

Last Photograph of My Mother Laughing

 

The one in the book after this, you’re in the Louvre, whiter

and colder than Venus. It will be winter, your hands

 

in veins, your lips tight as marble. But now, it is spring

in Manila, Jim Croce’s voice is wrapping against

 

an aging purpling sky where a seam of your hair puffs

up—, nebulous perfection. You’ve placed your hand

 

on your hip in young, flirtatious refusal. One wrist steels

with a watch so big, it’s halfway to falling, and your arms are

 

plain and hairless enough to turn into a statue’s missing 

limbs. Gallery mother, swing of my heart,

 

you’re standing above three black-haired sisters

who as I look at you there, are dead.

 

The investigative report says “dark sky, calm wind”

in Louisiana when Jim gazed out the plane’s window,

 

morning sticky with haze. Your city aches in the corner.

And your mouth breaks so cleanly across the sky.