Thinking of Mom on her 96th birthday

I look at my belly button,
the place whereby
my mother’s body
grew and fed me.
This remnant
a visible telling of how
we are passed down
through the ages like
picked fruit.
My mother took her place
among the ancestors 
thirty-five years ago.
Yet
her being is always with me.
I reach my hands out
and wonder,
did she exist?
Did she take up space? 
And how would we talk
now as women?
There is so much to say.