Poetry : In the Bathroom Sink

In the Bathroom Sink

My mother washes her hair. She can’t hear
the doorbell. There are bubbles in her ears,
a faucet spraying loud beads to her scalp.

Eyes closed, her hands are so busy
all over her head in an orbit of suds
and massage, twisting it together
after every cycle.

From the hallway I watch her.
What’s she thinking about?
My father? The color of her favorite lipstick?
What she’ll cook for dinner?
Me?

She is not my mother anymore.
There, before the mirror, she is a girl in thought,
in a cleansing. She has scrubbed away my mother
for this five minutes. With eyes closed, she is nothing,
but a woman. Someone, I realize, I barely know.

Taking a towel from the wall,
she raises her head, opens her eyes,
water falling to her freckled shoulders,
and she sees me in the mirror’s reflection.
She smiles. I walk away, and answer
the ringing door.