My mother left Russia.
Came to America before the Hitler years.
Rode the Lexington Avenue subway
from the Bronx
to her job in a dress factory.
On Friday she lit candles
and kept a smaller candlestick for me.
Later to prove her memory to herself
she wrote her name over and over
on a sheet of Dad’s notepaper.
Sometimes she babbled.
Much thinner
her hair white
she is dressed, fed
and bathed by others.
In a nursing home in the Bronx
her last time there
I promise to remember her.
In a few hours she dies.
A long time East Windsor resident, Wright has published poems in newspapers,Delaware Valley Poets anthologies, Kelsey Reviews and elsewhere.
