I lift my palms up
the way a mother does, hoping
for better things
for her children,

the way I did last summer,
cupping my hands beneath the ain:
the eye,
centuries-old place
in the center of my family's
village where mountain
spring water flows,
cold
and singing.

The day after Siti's* funeral,
I went to Our Lady
of Lourdes
and drank water
they say is blessed,
dripping from a steel pipe
among potted geraniums.

Did she see me,
meek as the paper cone I used
for a cup?

*"Siti": the Arabic word for grandmother

Volume 2, Issue 1, 2007