burro parade

on hormones and mothers and how time keeps folding into itself

The woman at the bookshop with her daughter handed me her phone and told me to scroll through them all. She had taken a photo of each little donkey as they clopped past her through the plaza that morning. Each one covered in flowers and reverence. The history of those streets and the praise of thanks given to a tradition. How we both couldn’t get over how cute they were; proud and full of hee-haw; some still winter-coated, some miniature; most grinning. We laugh because we look up and both have tears on our faces.

My mom tells me this morning that she tried to put in her eye drops without help, but her hands aren’t yet strong enough to squeeze. So she cried a little out of frustration, and then she laughed because she had wet her eyes enough.

I send her this song on my drive and I know she’ll understand what I mean when I send sad songs on Mother’s Day. Because of the way that holds everything. Because of the way we all are.

We laugh and we cry.

Originally titled Mothers Day, from Soap Opera, 2022 Jill Prendergast

Big Lake, Minnesota, ca 1965