My Mother's Skincare Routine

My mother's skincare routine was unparalleled and unique,
at least it used to be. As I child I was witness to it while
I sat on her shoulders – the woman who birthed
me in another country and in another 
language used transnational waters and
sloughing sediment to soften
the ruggedness that a forced economic deregulation
had on her once pearly skin.
My mother's skincare routine was standardized
not in front of a glossy bathroom sink, but of a sizzling grill.
The rising steam relaxing the pores filled with meat grease.
The dripping sweat glazing saline through a rippled desert
that was this women's visage – the women who closed
her nights underneath the red light therapy of
a shimmering heat lamp and masked her face in
concern over collagen.
My mother's skincare routine was nonexistent and inaccessible,
and it shows in her smile lines. Cracks and fractures,
meridians that all lead to food on the table
and an empty vanity case, her fingers replete with
grime – the women whose nails were never
painted but always chipped. She glistened with
ardor and purpose, never with powder.
Fixated in my memory as God's demonstration
on what beauty really is.