Union Terminal: The Whispering Fountain

Inside the rotunda, I can only
think of the past. My mother as a girl
of twelve stood twice where I stand,
passing through in 1944
from the creekbeds of Kentucky
on her way to Buffalo— Niagara River
and the great lake’s shores—
and back again in ‘45. Now
my husband and I wheel her all around.
She told me once what she liked best
to see on the trip North was all
the pretty dresses, cut on a bias
with hems up almost to the knees,
saving fabric for the war effort.
Now whatever she remembers
about this or anywhere she’s been
is locked inside her brain.
I send her with my husband
to the fountain one side of the rotunda,
and from the other call to her
“Hello, hello!” My voice is carried
up along the grooves of the dome
and back down to her. I am calling
to the past. She doesn’t answer.