(for Mom)

Our shadows walk side by side,
yours pushing the apparatus that

helps you stand taller, ache less,
and in our shadows I imagine

a much younger you pushing
a much younger me

in a different kind of rolling
contraption, perhaps just as

slowly, with great deliberation,
moving the two of us then

from there to here. And
here we are now,

in a here we could not have
envisioned in the then.

But here we still are,
walking beside each other,

me and my shadow,
you and yours.

And this is what I promise
to remember in the someday

when my shadow walks
alone—our silhouettes,

just like this,
in the forever here.