In memory of Ruth Rita Nelson

Every year you’d send me a card
aimed to arrive on the 30th of June,

rosy with floral sentiment and your
familiar signature, Love, Mom II,

because you took it upon yourself
to mother the new girl reporter

on the local paper who’d suffered
one too many beestings on assignment

with your son, the photographer.
He brought me home; you tucked my

puffed-up face into the guest bed with tea
and Benadryl, quietly coming in to check

on one who imagined herself a bona fide
grownup instead of one who needed

tending in a tender way that day.
And for decades after, your cards

often arrived a month ahead of my
actual day—no one in your family

got the day right—but I didn’t care.
I still have those cards celebrating

the anniversary of my arrival on
the planet a bit early, and now,

when I come across them, I smile,
remembering your strong nurse’s

hands placing cool cloths on my
stung forehead, taking me into

your heart long before I realized
I’d landed there.