Mother's Day

When you called

that morning
and I left my students
your breath was weak
already seeping out your lungs
and your soft voice
a strain to hear

I'll die today

I fear

Hold on

I said
I'll be there soon

hold on,

Then an afterthought
to let you know
that if the pain were too much
or the moment too frightening
you did not need to wait
should not wait
for me,
and I promised:
There when I arrive
or gone
far away
I will hold you

to myself

I will stroke your cheek

and speak of lovely things
I promise this

And we drove in silence
Beth and I
across one state

and another

Bethlehem, PA to Avoca, NY
from the horizon of

doctoral hors d’œuvre

and ideological sight-seeing

and post-structural drift
and much
ado over spiritless writers about writers
many steps removed
from the stormy firmament

and suffering of art

always/already

saying nothing

in as many words as possible

as if to prove the meaninglessness

of utterance

by example---

to narrow interests
in a mobile home
in which I once scoured with such intensity
the pimples on my face
that it scabbed over into

a hideous mask
I wore for weeks.

We were too late.

You had left

it is supposed

for parts unknown

an hour before we opened the door
that breath gasping from your lungs

as they filled with blood and puss
though your journal says

you'd prayed and trusted and believed
and all of us with you

for eighteen months
all the way to that day,
your last act to tear away

the oxygen mask
to seize a breath
to steal another moment

to exist
to discover inspiration Holy and unholy

was done with you
and nothing left but to

expire.

I knelt beside your body

flatter and wider than in life
cradled in the soft cushions
of the rocking chair---
          I remembered that time
          I'd come home late

          or was it early
          to a locked trailer

          and crept through the open window
          by your chair
          Who's there?
          Your fright made me laugh

          when my own fright passed
          and you knew me at once

          laughing together another hour

          speaking of the poethic life

          I would live
          the mind
          the imagination
          the high-flung vision
          wed to a love of lost things
          I learned from Christ
---You did not know me

in your relaxed pose,

did not know

anyone

anymore
and the scent of urine
leaking from the recesses
of your body
did not smell like you.

I put my hand out

as if to keep

that promise

hold you to myself

stroke your cheek

speak of lovely things.

I meant

to keep it

and would have

I think

but for the

way your face

shimmered

and

blurred

and I

could no longer see

who

was

there