I.
She said, bluebirds on the curtains
make morning more like morning,
and some mornings it’s all I can do just to get up.
God spoke to her in tongues,
she, kneeling on her bedroom floor praying,
she, leaning her head against the hood of her oven
singing over a howling pack of kids,
Damn, damn, D-Damn, damn, damn . . .
II.
She said, This is what you do when you have kids, you give things up.
Oh Mom, do you really think
having children is all that?
You don’t want to die alone do you? she asked me,
You don’t want to die alone do you?
We all die alone, I insisted.
But in the end, I crawled right into that hospital bed beside her–
My mother – she is soft and pink
and traces her fingers across my back.
III.
I couldn’t keep up with death.
Oh, it’s so beautiful, she kept saying;
I kept asking, What is it, Mom, what do you see?
IV.
Don’t hit your sister, her arm is broken! she yelled.
Where the hell is your father? she cried.
Why did you marry such an ass? I asked.
She said when she and my father got married
people didn’t talk about all those psychological things
people talk about now.
She said, I hope I haven’t turned you girls against him.
She said, I can’t complain.
V.
She says, now, Yes, I’m ready to go.
She says, I only worry about you,
And, It will be much harder on you.
I squeeze in beside her in that final, metal-rimmed bed,
climb in beside the long tubes and beeping machines—
We are so weak from crying—it must be love—
Mom, I don’t want you to go. I don’t want to live alone.
Sorry, sorry, sorry. Please don’t go.