for mom

As she stood there
in the middle of the night
in front of the gate
that opened its metal mouth
and devoured her like a tiny piece of flesh,
she looked so fragile
that i felt i heard,
i actually heard
the ceaseless cracking of her skin,
from beyond the taxi window,
loud as if the glass pane of the entrance broke down
against the coldness of that most freezing winter
spreading there on the gray-with-gasoline snow piles;
she broke down
but when i looked out
for one last time
before the taxi prepared to leave
she was still standing there
in one piece
her right hand frozen on her mouth
as if to stop
her soul from leaving her body
as if to stop
all her sadness from becoming a loud cry that would wake people up;
and the taxi took its leave
leaving me with that lonely picture of her standing tall
to haunt me all the way to the airport