Ode to My Mother’s Hair

I hear Navroz and I picture roses every time.

A word the shape of things I cannot say

or cannot think to say. All of the ways I am reminded
of you:

ache and root and chasm—

It is spring again and I am holding the watering can

              at your edge, willing

each of your nephrons to bud and flower anew.
It is spring again—

Navroz—meaning your hair, clipped now, will entrance

with its vivid darkness once more. Mother,

you are the silhouette of every spring I have gulped down.
It was such a long

winter, your body filled with dead seeds.

And all along, there was also this—every poem filled
with the shade of you,

even this ode to spring.

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