Brigitte Goetze

After all these years, I finally understand
ancestor worship. And the desire to believe
that the departed become angels.
Death, being the great closer
and opener of eyes, transformed her
image from photo to hologram.

Being the older, she bushwhacked
through the crusty snow of our parents’ resistance,
be it against red shoes, blue jeans, or any other fashion
statements she cared to make,
telling me through her tears:
“You don’t know what I do for you.”

Soaring over my computer desk,
one of her first sculptures,
the bas-reliefs of an ancient wall
featuring a narrow, uneven passage,
hewn with her bare hands from native stone,
always open.