mother

[cjchaffin]

*i'd like some help cleaning this up.
it feels awfully wordy and overly descriptive to me
but i need to step away from it for a bit.
also, i'm not sure about the em dashes...do they work or not?
thanks in advance!*

I used to think of her
as being larger than life—
beautiful in her righteous anger,
frightening with her quiet, resounding stares—
a warm, comforting shell

filled with cool, steely resolve.
She was so many different adjectives
and I could fill pages describing her.
Now she is simply small and fragile,
asleep on the couch with a thin afghan.

She naps in the heat of the day
and dreams of her own mother.
She smiles with her eyes closed
as I pull the blanket over bony shoulders,
push silver hair behind her ear.

The first two stanzas are all "telling"….they are abstract and say nothing specific about your mother. By the time you get around to showing me your mother "napping" in the heat of the day, you have lost me.  Not so much a job of "cleaning up" but making a mess in the first place so we have something to discuss.  Love the picture that develops toward the end of stanza #2 and continues into stanza #3 (why the break?) but the first stanza and 3/4 are lost on me.  

hey 71, thank you so much for the honest review. that is exactly what i need to give me some perspective on this piece. i know my writing drifts into prose all to often. it's something i really struggle with and i'm trying to work on it. this is most helpful. i'm going to scrap that first strophe altogether and start with the imagery of the second. i'm grateful for the time you spent reading and commenting, it really does make a difference.