My mother myself

 

17 November 2021

Cat One pushed hole through

Screen door; Cat Two, who never

Leaves house, slinks through on

Deck while Joe and I

Text about our dying friend

She eats, she doesn’t

“What do I know?” Joe

Asks, semi-rhetorically

Young hospice worker

With flashy small car

Told me how to know active

Dying from passive

Where darkened skin spread

From foot to leg ascending

My mother’s body

(Though horizontal)

Who chose nothing life or death

She knew none of this

But her body took

Its stubborn council   to die

Is not to resist

Suffering   anxious

Love spilling over skin’s dam

Into my heart’s cave

Before I became

Her  or at least her mother

To sign a check is

To be someone   she

Knew, I’m not there with my friend

(We drifted apart)

My breath prayer flies

On mosquito wings a buzz

Before she dies turns

Alabaster white

Is taken out as matter

My mother my friend

Slip out the screen’s slit

Put paw in water puddle

Drink from mud circle

Turn toward living room

Push in, hiss at Cat 2, 3

Run out of living