Shelf Life

My mother, God bless her soul,
lives across the bridge, unmoved.

There is nowhere else she wants
to be. There is the sofa, the phone,

the television. A simple garden.
She has never seen the pyramids,

the eiffel tower, or the empire state
building, although she once

had a friend who knew a woman
who leaped to her death

from that great height.
She has never flown on an airplane,

or sailed on an ocean liner.
She has never taken a vacation

in the moutains, or driven
to the eastern shore, but ask her

where the canned tomatoes are
at the safeway, or the black olives

large and pitted, and she will close
her eyes and tell you the row,

the aisle, the position on the shelf
where they rest in shiny wonder.