Mother Sewing Buttons Poem by Gopikrishnan Kottoor

She sat by the fire, she sat quiet
by the slow flaming fire.

I remember her hand
with the tiny needle glistening silver
in the candle of the moon, a casked desire,
as a red button rolled down the floor.

Her hands kept shaking
as she savoured in her mouth
a bit of coloured thread.

She kept looking on with her eyes
that seemed never would close,
but which I shut tenderly
on that hospital bed that night
my red buttons rolling,
while the palliative nurses like late nuns
looked on;

Her closed eyes were soft
like the torn pages of a Bible in the last pew
soaked in the rains that tore apart the ceiling
to come down the heavens to pray;

As in the eye of the needle there rose a blue fire
wreathing her lips
petal wet all over my pillow.