Happy Mother's Day in the Great Beyond

 

Mother

nearing ninety winds the old clock

pulling the chains dangling

from the wooden case.

Time stored in her flesh and bones

seeps through her hands.

I listen to each shallow breath,

feel the faint trembling of her arm

tucked into the curve of mine,

as we climb the last steep hill to the store

on those muted winter days

which follow each other like dull pearls

strung on the thread of life.

The late afternoon sun casts

our thin shapes among the

shadows of birches and pines

coated with hoarfrost.

In the coffee shop she softens bites of

crusty bread and dips them into hot chocolate.

A drop falls on the face of Madonna

staring blue-eyed and beige from the

cover of Mademoiselle.

At dusk the waitress switches on the light.

My mother’s face,

white as a moon,

refracts from the window-pane.

I peer past her into the growing

darkness outside.

It’s not death I fear,

I am afraid of being the last one alive.

(Path of Fire, 2002)