Woman at the Wall

My mother always makes me say a prayer before going to bed its a cultural thing really. She was told while growing up, that God takes your soul every night and if you were good while you were awake, and said your prayer that he would return it to you in the morning. So when I read the poem "Women at the Wall" I thouhgt of my mother and how she worried everynight she she might not find us there in the morning.

Woman at the Wall

.

This is what she does:

she places her arm

behind the neck of the name

or around the name's shoulder,

she kisses the name on its forehead,

that way mothers do.

.

She prays

that tonight while she is sleeping

God will put all the names into a jar

and pull the one name out,

that in the morning when she awakens

she will find the name

sleeping again in its bed,

that she won't know any difference.