The Newly Dead
Do not ask for much. For instance,
my mother here at my shoulder
telling a story I remember
hearing before about so and so
and such and such. We have grown
so close since she passed. I call
from time to time to see what’s up.
She answers with the same low note
followed by a high. Hell-ooohhh,
the second part comes down a half pitch,
and I realize when I talk, she can’t hear
in her left ear. Signals transferred
via the aids she wears. A miracle,
superlative, begins to thin
as years wear the stain of age.
Here she is in the room where we put
her five days ago, making sure
she had everything but a kitchen.
The hospital bed tilts up for her legs,
the bathroom holds no shower. Instead
nurses come and take her for spa day.
They spray and she seems willing.
If, in hindsight, the heart I wore
was less than kind in its thoughts
towards the end she lets that go.
She cozies up to space-time. Here
we are in the same building, a beehive
full of elderly, God bless them,
souls. I perform those rituals
she declares unnecessary,
all the while multi-tasking.
When I hang up, she is gone.